Zuzu's bug ventures - Every fly ever edition
My weekend finds. There were actually a lot more flies, but these were the best pictures for each species I found. It’s honestly been SO cool learning about which insects and spiders come out in cold, damp, early spring weather.
A species of sheet weaver spider (Spirembolus mundus). The only spider this weekend, which is wild considering how many I saw last Saturday
A species of thrips (Ctenothrips bridwelli). This thing was like 1/16th of an inch. I’m shocked my phone camera zoomed in that well. For reference, the bugs in numbers 6 & 10 are on the same kayak cover. I took this one to reddit because I had honestly never seen or heard of thrips before
These next two are mega fails for me and my camera. This is probably a carpenter bee, but I only got this single action shot
There's a planthopper in this photo, I promise. I chased this bug all over the yard and this was the best picture I got of it 🤣 If any neighbors saw me, they were probably extremely confused
No clue. Possibly another aphid parasitoid wasp
Possibly a spear-winged fly (Lonchoptera bifurcata). The differences between this and the photo on the left are subtle, but fascinating, because one is probably a wasp and the other is probably a fly
A species of fruit fly (Scaptomyza pallida). Prettiest wings of the weekend award
Waltzing fly (Prochyliza xanthostoma). Never heard of this one before. Upon looking them up, they’re kinda gross not gonna lie
Lesser house fly (Fannia canicularis). HAVE heard of this one before
Hunter fly/common tiger fly (Coenosia tigrina). The stripes are pretty cool
Black carpenter ant (Camponotus pennsylvanicus). I just wanted to post these last two for the cool variety of backgrounds
Winter ant/false honey ants (Prenolepis imparis). I think I’ve posted like 3 of these already, but they’re so shiny!!