Thread subject: Diptera.info :: wow! Mythicomyiidae - Empidideicus hackmani :D (among the smallest flies)

Posted by jorgemotalmeida on 30-08-2008 22:46
#1

dear friends



* locality - North of SPAIN
* date - 2008.08.29
* size - about 0,8 mm (very tiny fly)
* habitat - near national "carretera" (road) with Lactuca sp, Taraxacum sp., Helianthus annuus field, etc etc, in an abandoned railroad...
* substrate - caught with the entomological net, maybe in one flower.. I was trying to catch another fly.. ;)


I'm so baffling with this "fantasticafabulous" fly. It is my very first Mtyhicomyiidae. You cannot imagine my great happinness when I spotted it in the North of Spain! And the size is baffling: only 0,8 mm (more or less). Very tiny. And it is among one of the smallest flies. So tiny that even proboscis just can be seen if we getting approach to the fly very, very close.
Well, this has a different wing venation comparing with the similar Platypygus genus.

I could observe the fly alive: it jumps a lot. It stands quiet a few minutes or sometimes seconds, and then jumps. I can imagine it standing on a leaf or petal and jumping to another very close surface. That big and strong proboscis (in relation to the fly) could leave us thinking as a predator, but the fly just feed on nectar.

I would like to know which is the host for this mythicomyiid too...

It was a pity that this fly last so little time. :( It was ko when I reached at home.

the irony was that in the 28th I was kidding with Isidro about these flies... seeing them inside a camion full of them (and also for Nemestrinidae. lol) and the impossibility to find them in North of Spain. :P

Edited by jorgemotalmeida on 01-09-2008 09:29