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Photo#54868
Stilt-legged Fly? - Cordilura varipes - male

Stilt-legged Fly? - Cordilura varipes - Male
Ashtabula County, Ohio, USA
May 20, 2006
This looks like a female Stilt-legged (Micropezid) fly. Found in a swamp.

Images of this individual: tag all
Stilt-legged Fly? - Cordilura varipes - male Stilt-legged Fly? - Cordilura varipes Stilt-legged Fly - Cordilura varipes

Moved
Moved from Stilt-legged Flies.

Micropezid
What a beauty. Not sure it isn't a male. And if it did not have a dorsal row of bristles on the hind tibia then this is Cnodacophora nasoni. If the tibia is bristled then it is one of the species in the big Micropeza genus. I have not see a photo of C. nasoni. There is a drawing of it on my website Micropezid key however.

 
Hi Herschel
Thanks Herschel. I thought it looked Micropezid-ish. This probably only the second species of Stilt-legged Fly I've ever seen, so I was pretty excited to find it.

Jay Cossey
PhotographsFromNature.com

 
Sorry, I was wrong
I have this on good authority... Steven Marshall, author of "Insects: Their Natural History and Diversity" (big, unabashed plug for an incredible, indispensable resource), tells me this is actually a Scathophagid fly rather than a Micropezid. Species is Cordilura varipes.

My sincerest apologies. Although it very much resembles a Micropezid, it's actually a leaf mining dung fly. Oh poop. ;-)

 
yes, this is right
I was about to make this comment, except I didn't know the species. You are right. It seems that Micropezidae is such a cool, distinctive family that any elongate, spindly legged fly gets recognized as a micropezid, even though there are many other families with this habitus. For instance, last week I sorted through the unidentified Micropezids in the collection here at Cornell and found representatives of 7 other families of flies, including Scathophagidae- Cordilura. Even professional entomologists mistake things for Micropezids.

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