Category Archives: Uncategorized

On 5/5/23, I joined Jonathan Mays to look for robber flies in Gilcrist and Alachua Counties (north Florida). I spotted this Leptogaster navigating among the vegetation, prodding at stems. I was proud of myself that I was able to identify it before it landed — it was fairly large for Leptogastrinae, it had brown wingsContinue reading “Leptogaster: Stealth spider hunters!”

Laphria cinera is found throughout the eastern U.S. in pine forests, though its range stops short of most of Florida. There are only a few previous records in north Florida. I’m not certain if it is truly scarce, or if it simply flies early in the year in a specialized habitat and may be overlooked.Continue reading “Laphria cinerea!”

Machimus maneei occurs in sandy pinewoods throughout the eastern U.S. and Canada though populations appear to be spotty. Either that, or this species is overlooked. It has been recorded north to Ontario, west to Michigan and Illinois, and south to Arkansas, Louisiana, and Florida. There is a single Florida record from Gainesville (north Florida) atContinue reading “Man, oh man, Machimus maneei”

I have recently added pages for all of the remaining species that have been recorded in Florida. There are new pages for Taracticus, Nicocles, Atomosia, Pogonosoma and Orthogonis, Cyrtopogon (hypothetical in Florida), Ceraturgus, Nannodioctria, Holcocephala, Eccritosia, and Asilus (hypothetical in Florida). I have confirmed 109 species for the Florida list, and I consider 18 speciesContinue reading “All Florida species accounts up!”

New pages for Laphria and Holopogon are now up! These are the first draft, and I hope to add more information to help separate species soon. I also developed draft phenology (seasonality) charts for the 105 species where I have been able to track down specific Florida information. I will be updating this with newContinue reading “Laphria, Holopogon, and Seasonality now up!”

On Wednesday 12/8, I visited the Florida State Collection of Arthropods (FSCA) in Gainesville. It’s only open on weekdays, which makes it difficult for working stiffs to visit. I got to meet Gary Steck, a dipterist who has helped organize the specimens and put together a handy Florida Syntopic Collection. I also got to meetContinue reading “Florida State Collection of Arthropods”

While creating this page, I remembered that I wrote a paper in college on mimicry in robber flies. Spoiler alert: it’s almost all conjecture. INTRODUCTION Mimicry occurs when an organism has evolved to resemble another organism, most often to the direct benefit of the mimic.  Mimicry has been recorded in many animal orders, such asContinue reading “Artifice Among Asilidae: An investigation of insect mimicry, focusing on robber flies”