Kurt,

In female robber flies, the abdomen generally tapers to a more or less pointed structure (the ovipositor). Male abdomens generally end with bulbous genitalia (especially the case with your male Laphria sobria -- the one with the winged ant prey).

Absolutely beautiful Kurt (though not the mite: too disfiguring)! Yes, this is the female of Laphria (Choerades) sobria -- the male of which I identified for you last year.

Cheers, Eric

Javier, Yes, it could well be a Machimus sp. That is about the largest genus of Asilinae in Europe. But other Asilinae genera could look just like the portions you have shown. Best bet for ID would be to post a full-body, lateral image of a male (if possible), with the genital area in clear focus, o...

You guys are too fast for me today; just can't keep up! Yes, just as Rik says. I'll add that these lobes are situated at the inside base of all fly wings and are flexible. When flies fold their wings inward, toward the mid-line of the body, these lobes flex upward -- too make space for the wing base...

Fantastic photos Javier! (Wish I could tell you the genus & species of this Asilinae robber fly but can't from these shots alone; too many options.) Chris: do you mean the spoon-shaped structure here , in crop 02? That is the haltere, the remains of the highly-modified 2nd pair of wings, present in ...

More splendid photography NU! I particularly like fig. 7 in your Micscape article: base of the wing, with thorax in the foreground (showing structure of the macrosetae). What are the photo details of this shot?

Wing veins of an insect; not sure which...possibly a leafhopper of some sort?

Hi Caponito, Welcome to Photomacrography! (And: your English is great, though no problem if it wasn't...) Congratulations on getting the little Minolta 12.5 lens. I have one, and I find it to be very sharp . I use it only in the lab, on a stand; the working distance is quite short (5 - 8mm) but the ...

From just the head, it looks like a Hippoboscidae. These flies are parasites of birds and mammals. Most species have wings but some are wingless -- like the "sheep ked" -- which is a parasite of sheep, and is common in Europe and elsewhere.

Very nice fly Laurie! Definitely a soldier fly (Stratiomyiidae); I showed your images to my friend Martin Hauser (an expert on this family, plus other kinds of flies too...), who informed me it is Beris vallata.

Cheers,

Eric

Mitch,

The day-long treatments of both Lactic acid and KOH have helped to clear the cuticle of the tick to a great extent, as well as eliminate lots of "extraneous" internal tissue. That is the purpose of these treatments: to prepare the specimen for clear viewing on a slide.

Eric

I think in the moth world, it would be "bursa copulatrix" (for the female...). Very nice images NU.

Wow! Fabulous work Yeatzee -- quite a beautiful fly. Yes, it is a fruit fly relative: Pogonortalis doclea , family Platystomatidae. A photo of this fly was shown in photomacrography before ( HERE : photo at top of pg. 5, blurb on ID below). The fly is a native of Australia but hangs-out in Californi...

Fabulous Charles! I believe you have just independently discovered a new and exciting method, called the "Wing Interference Pattern" (WIP), that helps discriminate between species of flies (and other insects) -- which was announced in 2010 (see HERE ). And -- not surprising to us -- you have improve...

Yes, your stacking is coming along very nicely Tanner! I believe your little predatory fly is a Muscidae in the genus Coenosia (possibly C. tigrina ). You will be interested in a fascinating report on this genus, published a few years ago by Martin Suvak: "Coenosia attenuata can behave like a falcon...