📍 Location: Chapel Hill, North Carolina 🗓 Date: April 25, 2026 🐾 Media: Image 🌿 Species: Lesser Variegated Snipe Fly (Rhagio punctipennis) 📝 Notes: Slender predatory fly commonly found in forests, woodland edges, meadows, and shaded vegetation across parts of North America. Adults typically display mottled brown, yellow, and smoky wing patterns that provide camouflage while resting on leaves, logs, or low vegetation.
Often observed perched motionless before making short rapid flights to capture small insects in midair or from nearby surfaces. Larvae develop in soil, decaying wood, and leaf litter where they are also predatory, feeding on other small invertebrates within moist forest habitats.
🔗 iNaturalist: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/353776089
