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 secondary sexual canibalism in empid flies?
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| mwkozlowski |
Posted on 23-11-2006 17:48
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 Member Location: Posts: 751 Joined: 17.10.06 |
This pictue was taken in Tatra montains some litle below 2000 m. Two questions: (1) what fly? (2) can anybody guess the sex of the victim (if it were a female this wwould be a strange case of sexual canibalism where a female is the victim) |
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| LordV |
Posted on 23-11-2006 18:22
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Member Location: Posts: 671 Joined: 06.09.05 |
I'd guess the victim was a pre-nuptial present from the male. Brian V. |
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| jorgemotalmeida |
Posted on 23-11-2006 19:05
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 Member Location: Posts: 9295 Joined: 05.06.06 |
this is a great natural history moment!!! Two actions: predation (offered by male) and sex... powerful photo! Death and life in action! |
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| Paul Beuk |
Posted on 23-11-2006 20:21
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 Super Administrator Location: Posts: 19208 Joined: 11.05.04 |
Well, this action is sometimes the easiest way to get pictures of empid species.  The 'top two' are a species of Empis. It could be E. tessellata but without reference for size it is difficult to say for sure. The base of the wing is yellowish (but that is also the case in some other species) and the leg colourations seems to fit as well (normally the tibiae are clearly dark reddish but in higher altitude specimens they may get considerably darker). The prey could be the same species (in general smaller specimens might fall victim to hunting behaviour of the males, but as E. tessellata is quite ferocious I doubt that one male will easily be overpowered by another) but most likely it is another species of Empis. In some areas where several species are active at the same time it is commonplace that smaller species fall victim to larger species of empids, like smaller Hilara are frequently caught by Rhamphomyia crassirostris. Paul - - - - Paul Beuk on https://diptera.info |
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