Like attracts Like

Hi, I have had a very frustrating morning chasing a single butterfly around a large field and not catching it. Now I need a sit down before I take Fizz out.

I thought that I could show you some pictures of a Scorpion Fly. These are old pictures, I didn’t take any photos this morning because I couldn’t get close to my target and I didn’t take pictures of anything else because I was obsessed and now I will have to go back tomorrow.

People sometimes leave nice comments saying that my pictures are beautiful and I appreciate that but I do know that it is not the picture it is the animal that is so strikingly beautiful, seeing it up close can take you aback.

Here is a prime example of what I am talking about.

This is a Scorpion Fly, Panorpa spp. (spp means “species” and when you see that it means we don’t know which species it is) there are three species of Scorpion Fly in the UK and to separate them you have to examine their genitals under a microscope, which shouldn’t be that difficult because that big Scorpion like sting is actually his genitalia but I didn’t have a microscope on me.

Perhaps he is not a classical beauty and you might be thinking, “Who could possibly love something that looks like that, apart from Colin of course?”

The answer is, someone who looks like this.

This is a female Scorpion Fly and she doesn’t have the big wotsit stingy thing but she is the more formidable of the pair.

Neither fly has a sting or offers any harm to humans, they eat mostly dead insects that they either find or steal from Spider’s webs.

However the female will sometimes kill the male after mating.

Most websites will tell you this, “to avoid being killed the male will offer the female a gift, in the run up to mating, of a large glob of spittle.”

Personally I think that is half the problem, spit is not a popular gift idea and that is more likely the reason why she tries to kill him.

So there we have it another adorable Diptera species the Scorpion Fly.

Male

Female