Fly with a prominent 'W' on it's back

- No description given -

comments (9)

Christine Young

Lion

Interesting! I’ve never seen a robber fly with a marking like that. Have you tried getting an ID from Bugguide? Posted 7 years ago
1. morpheme
  
  Lion
  
  Not yet - I had so many photos from the last two days that it took me all day just to go through, edit them and get them up here! That is one of my tasks for today - either ID the remaining insects or get them onto BugGuide. Posted 7 years ago, modified 7 years ago
2. 1. Christine Young
    
    Lion
    
    Hope you can get an ID! It's such a unique pattern that you would assume it'd be easy to ID, but I can't find a match. Posted 7 years ago
  2. 1. morpheme
      
      Lion
      
      Wow... l was hoping that prominent 'W' would be a dead giveaway but it's looking like this little gal (it's a female) may not even be known.... The first person who's looked at it over on BugGuide thinks it may be a Cyrtopogon sp. (from the orange antenna) but they are not all known and it certainly isn't represented on BugGuide right now if it is in that genus. Posted 7 years ago, modified 7 years ago
    2. 1. Christine Young
        
        Lion
        
        That's awesome! What a great find! Posted 7 years ago
      2. morpheme
        
        Lion
        
        A little update.. this may end up being an interesting story indeed. A second person weighed in on BugGuide and appears sure that unless this was simply a strangely marked example that it is does not match any known species. This has my husband all fired up and so we are going to go back to the spot to see if we can actually find and collect a sample(s). Luckily this time the area is National Forest controlled and collecting is allowed without a permit. Once before I had someone quite keenly interested in something I put up on BugGuide and he was really hoping I had it- but it was photographed in a National Park. In any case I prefer to in general, be a kinder and more benign version of a crazy Victorian collector - I only take away photographs for the most part.
        Posted 7 years ago
        
        Christine Young
        
        Lion
        
        That’s so exciting! You may have photographed an undescribed species! Hope you can find it again :) Posted 7 years ago
        
        morpheme
        
        Lion
        
        OMG - they weren't hard to find at all... I caught 2 and observed several more over just a few hours, so definitely not an anomaly. Now to get better photos and if it passes that test, send it to an expert and really see if it doesn't yet have a name. Posted 7 years ago
        
        Christine Young
        
        Lion
        
        Awesome! I can’t believe you saw them again! Please keep us posted. Hoping it’s a new species, but even finding a rare one is an incredible thing too :) Posted 7 years ago

The Cyrtopogon longimanus

Cyrtopogon longimanus Loew, 1874 is a Robberfly (Asilidae) known from North America. It is closely related to C. marginalis, also known from the eastern U.S. and Canada, sharing a puffed-up, shiny black scutellum, which lines-up with a series of shiny-black spots along the sides of the thorax with that species.

Info 8 0

Similar species: True Flies

Species identified by morpheme