Identification, Images, & Information
For Insects, Spiders & Their Kin
For the United States & Canada
Clickable Guide
Moths Butterflies Flies Caterpillars Flies Dragonflies Flies Mantids Cockroaches Bees and Wasps Walkingsticks Earwigs Ants Termites Hoppers and Kin Hoppers and Kin Beetles True Bugs Fleas Grasshoppers and Kin Ticks Spiders Scorpions Centipedes Millipedes

Calendar

TaxonomyBrowseInfoImagesLinksBooksData
Photo#144771
Diptera - Sarcophaga

Diptera - Sarcophaga
NNW of Pagosa Springs, Hinsdale County, Colorado, USA
June 24, 2007
Size: ~ 1 cm +/-
I'm still looking for a housefly. I'm awful with wing venation, but this seems to me to be getting close. Or maybe it's a tachinid? Maybe someone can help me ID this fly. I photographed it at a trap baited with a fish head.
But I'm pretty sure it's a fly, so I'm going to try to add the word in Navajo.
tsé'édǫ'ii (fly)

Flesh fly aka Sarcophagidae
More precisely, I think it's Sarcophaga sp. due to tri-striped thorax, red eyes and tail light, but an expert opinion would be required to get it to genus.

Wonder what a tse tse fly would be in Navajo. (Just kidding!)

 
Just a guess...
tsé'édǫ´'ii tsetse

I agree- it's probably a flesh fly.

 
Interesting material, Chuck
Your background in linguists serves you well.

 
red abdomen
My reference says the tip of the abdomen is often red on Sarcophagidae, so you're probably right. But it reminded me a lot of this picture
http://entomology.unl.edu/images/muscidflies/housefly.jpg
(except for the red tip on the abdomen)
And look at those fuzzy feet!

 
Similar, but not the same.
Identifying muscids and related families is pretty tough from images- it took us a long time to get anyone to confirm an ID on any of several Musca domestica candidates that were posted.

If you look closely at the image you linked to, you'll notice that the wing veins make rather clean stair-step shapes along the back edges of the wings. That's typical of houseflies and their relatives. In your fly, the lengthwise veins extend past the intersection with the other veins.

As for whether this is an authentic tsé'édǫ´'ii- ask a Navajo. Even when a word in one language can be directly translated with a word in another language, there may be subtle differences in what specific cases are covered.

Languages tend to start with one kind of the thing named which can be thought of as a "type", then add adjectives to name other kinds that are reminiscent of the first, but are different. Over time, the original type may be forgotten, or replaced by another, but there usually is one.

In English, the house fly seems to be the type, but just about any kind of flying insect can receive the "fly" name, from dragonflies to butterflies.

So, in order to really understand what tsé'édǫ´'ii means, you have to look at:

1. Which type of fly is the main tsé'édǫ´'ii. Is it the house fly, or some similar native fly?

2. Which other types of fly can be called tsé'édǫ´'ii?

3. Which kinds of fly (or other insects) are named after it, with modifying adjectives?

4. Does it correspond to scientific categories, or is based on some other concept? A blackbird is a specific type of bird (though it's applied to different specific birds in different parts of the world), while a black bird is any bird that happens to be black in color.

5. What other names are there for similar things, and what distinguishes tsé'édǫ´'ii from things with those other names.

6. Is tsé'édǫ´'ii itself derived from other words? The Navajo Language analyzes it as tsé (rock) + 'édǫ´'(to buzz) + -ii (a noun-forming suffix that seems to mean "the one that")

It's more complicated then that, but I hope I've shown how words often have much more to them than a dictionary entry can cover.

Comment viewing options
Select your preferred way to display the comments and click 'Save settings' to activate your changes.