#longlegged fly

Carpenter Ant - Camponotus pennsylvanicus

Looking at this array of pictures featured in today’s post, two observations are immediately clear. Firstly, Carpenter Ants feature relatively prominent mandibles if you can get a good look at the front of their head. Secondly, they will travel to and through all manner of environments if it means a successful foraging for their colony. If there’s something edible to be found, they’ll claim it. And they will get other nestmates from the colony to help secure and transport the find. In terms of actual communication between individuals, Ants are highly sophisticated, as would be expected for eusocial insects in a colony numbering in the thousands (at minimum). When a crucial source of food or object of interest has been found by a foraging worker, that worker can relay the information to her nestmates by using her antennae or by creating a pheromone trail for others to follow. The use of scents, scent cues and specific pheromones is fundamental here! Not to say that the other senses of an Ant are lacking, but their vision and the sensory hairs along their body can only get them so far in terms of Ant-to-Ant communication and environment navigation. 

Getting back on track, a worker Ant can furthermore directly administer relevant information to other worker Ants chemically through transfer of her saliva. While it looks like worker Ants may be feeding each other at a glance, the reality is that the vital information one worker has can be swiftly delivered from worker to worker until the information arrives at the colony. Of course, Ants do also employ saliva-swapping/sharing behavior in order to tend to the young larvae developing in their nurseries, and supply them with nutritious food for their metamorphosis. Despite how fearsome those mandibles can be for protection of the colony or outright aggression towards onlookers or nest intruders, they can be surprisingly tender during an exchange with a nestmate. In terms of the individuals here, the individuals on the concrete haven’t found any food, but they could certainly sense the approaching vibration of my footsteps. Meanwhile, milkweed leaves and pine branches prove to be more fruitful, as the individuals here have uncovered a bounty of honeydew and pine sap respectively. Sugar-based food is quite valuable energetically, so the more individuals that can arrive to lap up the material and bring it to the colony and queen, the better. Finally, just because there’s honeydew around, doesn’t mean that other animals/insects should get comfortable around these foraging Ants. Unless you are a Bug who can excrete honeydew regularly, it’s better to keep distance or have a defense ready or an escape. Ants communicating with strangers usually leads to ruin for any recipient who can’t “speak” Ant. For the Condylostylus (Longlegged) Fly seen in the image below, its wings allowed it to escape when the rightmost Carpenter Ant became inquisitive. 

found this beauty on a mandevilla leaf! maybe a favorite of mine, I just love their metallic colors

okay so, I had so much trouble IDing this one. I could not, for the life of me, determine it's species. it was Condylostylus for sure, but was its species graenicheri or caudatus? after spending an hour frantically trying to find a difference I then realized it was C. graenicheri because of the two hairs at the end of its abdomen. this was all for an assignment btw

Longlegged Flies - Condylostylus spp.

I’ve wanted to include this group of insects on this blog for some time now, but there was a rather large complication in the way. Insect identification can be difficult, and it becomes even more difficult without physical specimens to probe, examine and see all the particular fine details such as wing venation, terminal segments, bristle color, etc. I want to the leave the insects be (as much as possible, I am still interacting with them), observing them in their environment and letting them go about their lives for the purposes of the blog, but that doesn’t bode well when it comes to the specifics needed to identify the Flies of the family  Dolichopodidae (Longlegged Flies). Many of these Flies look quite similar to each other, so my solution to this problem is to upload them wholesale to the blog identified under their genus, fully identifying them if possible. some are of course easier to identify than others, but since these individuals have yellow legs ending in black, confirmation at a glance isn’t very likely.

There’s a lot to like and appreciate here with these insects despite their elusive characteristics. The Condylostylus genus (shown here) features metallic green bodies, prominently veined wings with additional markings, long and slender legs, eyes that can come in an array of colors, and a tapering abdomen from otherwise normal Fly body proportions. With the lattermost trait, the abdomen will allow you to differentiate between male and female Flies: female abdomens taper to a point, while males have consistently narrow abdomens. Might be useful to know given that normally it’s the eyes that have it for Flies. Moreover, it’s fairly common to find many of these individuals together in one area, even of different species (differentiation is much harder as a result), congregating on leaves in the sun. Unlike other forest Flies who seek rotting material, dung or old plants, these Longlegged Flies prefer to eat smaller insects including many pest Hemipterans, making them quite handy around the garden. Though skittish, they can gracefully sprint around rather than immediately take off when a photographer is nearby. Their lustrous sheen leaves them very conspicuous so you won’t miss them when they return after their brief scare.

Longlegged Flies - Condylostylus spp.

Over a year later, and still I’ve barely scratched the surface when it comes to these iridescent beauties. It did give me the chance to go through my back catalogue and discover that I have pictures of specimens dating back to 2017, a time when I was very green with these insects (pun intended, I regret nothing). Even from a brief glimpse throughout the years, there’s a lot of variety on display, potentially different species within the Condylostylus genus. Alas, as mentioned in the first post showcasing Longlegged Flies, identification down to the specie is difficult with live specimens as a close inspection of their bodies is essential. Having said that, there’s still much that can learned and appreciated from these Flies. For one, the beautiful shimmering greens across the exoskeleton with some individuals having a blend of red and at least one particular individual with a blue tipped abdomen. Would you look at that, they’re Christmas-colored Flies! The color variability also extends to their eyes with some having green and others red and some eyes also appearing more as a blend. For such small Flies, they sure know how to catch the eye, and though their eyes can be different colors, that doesn’t change how these Flies see the world.

The preferred choice of environment can be glimpsed from these pictures. Specifically, I’ve found a majority of this Fly family perching and then scampering on vegetation, but specifically vegetation within a shaded area. Obviously they need a little bit of sun for extra warmth, but they would always tend to run back to the shade and explore that area rather than venture out into the sun. This is consistent with what sources and Bugguide mention, but they also mention that (no surprise here) their preferred environment needs a nearby water source since their young flourish in moist soil. Assuming they’re able to tolerate the Ebony Jewelwings that live by the stream, perhaps they fly to the neighborhood in search of soft-bodied insects. Gardens tend to make a lot of those, and it’s much easier when friendly neighborhood insects perform their own ecosystem control. If they don’t live by the stream in my area, then the soil developing larvae are likely very reliant on rain and watering plants with the hose during the summer months. The winged adults are luckier since they can obtain their nutrients from the insects they pierce. They’ll need all the energy they can get as adulthood for a Longlegged Fly means mating rituals. There’s a bit of that going on in some of these images, but not quite mating pairs yet. There’s a selection process to pass, and the wings and legs have to be in top form!