Dipterists Society

Flies are vital to ecosystems but remain under-recorded. Join David Brice and the @dipteristsforum.bsky.social on 27 October for a practical webinar exploring fly surveying methods, habitat assessment, identification and biological recording. Book: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1989322708...

Terellia has some serious antenna game! Why are they bristly, why not! Fascinating discovering at today's Picture Wing Fly course with @tanyptera.bsky.social #diptera #entomology

That last repost is a good excuse to share again Steven Falk's beautiful colour plate from Peter Chandler's Platypezidae monograph (The Flat-footed Flies of Europe, Fauna Entomologica Scandinavica, 2001).

Commissioned illustration of Richardia telescopica 🪰 #entomology

#ColorADay #YellowThu #MacroMonday #FlyDay #ECK

#invertober 13, golden backed snipe fly! finally logging a dipteran #invertober2026

20 years ago today was my first day at the @nhm-london.bsky.social. It’s been packed with learning, travelling, listening, curating, researching and shouting about the wonder of flies & the collection Thanks to everyone who made my double-decades amazing 🤘🪰🦟🤓

⚠️DEADLINE IS THIS FRIDAY ⚠️ Please share and consider submitting talks for this session!

Twist-winged Parasite Flies, Ectophasia crassipennis, were on the last flowering umbellifers by the River Rother, near Rye, this morning. #UKwildlife #Sussexwildlife #insects #flies @dipteristsforum.bsky.social @sussexwildlife.bsky.social

Diary Date - 2027 Dipterist Forum spring identification workshop will be on... Dolichopodidae! This hugely popular annual event will run 12th -14th March with tutors Martin Drake (author of the new RES Dolichopodidae Handbook) and Dave Brice (DF training officer). dipterists.org.uk/events/dipte...

Amongst the frenzy of the Ivy bees, a male Stomorhina lunata was just hanging out on a leaf. #WildWebsWednesday

🚨REMINDER🚨 We are still looking for speakers for the Dipterists Society meeting at @entsocamerica.bsky.social this November. Please submit your fly talks or share for more visibility!

From our #wildspace garden this afternoon on unopened flower head of ivy. Dioxyna bidentis (Ragwort Picture-winged Fly) @dipteristsforum.bsky.social @dipterists.bsky.social Please let me know if my id is wrong.

I believe this is a Female Lindneromyia dorsal, a flat-footed fungus fly, seen today in our garden. About 3mm long and hyperactive, running erratic, jerky paths over the surface of leaves. Is this id correct? @dipteristsforum.bsky.social @dipterists.bsky.social

Cistogaster globosa (Bishop's-mitre Parasite Fly) Walton-on-the-Naze, my 3rd record locally. It is known from a few localities in Southern England and is a distinctive species unlikely to be overlooked and probably genuinely rare. @dipteristsforum.bsky.social @dipterists.bsky.social

Lots of Diptera 'good stuff' coming up in October from those nice people at @biologicalrecording.co.uk. The days are getting colder and the nights are drawing in so let's get prepped ready for next year! dipterists.org.uk/events/robbe... dipterists.org.uk/events/surve... @flygirlnhm.bsky.social

I'm having a bit of trouble identifying this fly. I believe it's a adult female Banded-eyed Picture-winged Fly, Physiphora alceae. Seen a couple in our NE Essex garden the last couple of days. Any help with id please. @dipterists.bsky.social @dipteristsforum.bsky.social

Check out this absolute unit of a Robberfly - an undescribed/identified Bactria species from Vietnam. Amazing @dipterists.bsky.social @dipteristsforum.bsky.social @royentsoc.bsky.social

I believe this is a Anomoia purmunda, commonly known as the spectacled berry fly or hawthorn fruit fly, a small picture-winged fruit fly belonging to the family Tephritidae. Can anyone confirm please @dipteristsforum.bsky.social @dipterists.bsky.social Seen today in our NE Essex garden

🚨REMINDER🚨 We are still looking for speakers for the Dipterists Society meeting at @entsocamerica.bsky.social this November. Please submit your fly talks or share for more visibility!

A kaiju-sized fruit fly knocking over university buildings! A small but mighty genetic model. #kaiju #fruitfly #destruction #grickledoodle

We'll be hosting our 35th General Meeting @ #EntSoc26 (Nov. 10; Columbus, OH) and are looking for speakers! Presentations can be on anything related to #Diptera If you're interested please message @bertonemyia.bsky.social for a link to submit your talk info for consideration. Hope to see you there!

🪰 A new species of fly, Metopomyza hebeiensis, has been documented from China, alongside two other species newly recorded in the country for the first time: doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1290.199747

— On #FlyDay Friday, eying the weekend like: — #NaturalHistoryCollections #MacroPhotography #FocusStacking #Holcocephala #RobberFly #Asilidae 👀

Kishenehn formation from Eocene of Montana, is famous for #fossil Culiseta mosquito with preserved haemoglobine, discovered by my friend Dale Greenwalt. Less famous are water skating midges - Hintelmaniella noncatafractata, we discovered with Dale doi.org/10.26879/1165 #fossilfriday 🦖🪰⚒️

For your #FlyDay Friday, take a gander at these super thin crane flies! Very neat insects ☺️ #Tipulidae s.l.: #Limoniidae: #Orimarga Costa Rica

🦟 A distinctive group of #crane #flies has been examined in China, with Hexatoma chrysomela redescribed and newly recorded across several provinces, and a new species, H. guangxiensis, described from Guangxi and Yunnan: doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1289.196984

A Soldierfly in genus Chorisops. C. nagatomii Bright Four-spined Legionnaires vs C. tibialis Dull Four-spined Legionnaire Definitely a Chorisops but not a good enough photo of the abdomen to tell which. #irecord @dipteristsforum.bsky.social @dipterists.bsky.social @uk-soldierflies.bsky.social

Bats and bat-flies Last night I tagged along to collect Nycteribiids from Daubenton’s bats. Great to see these dipteran weirdoes - flies with no wings, no eyes & giving birth to live young. 😎🪰 @dipteristsforum.bsky.social @royentsoc.bsky.social

Tenure track Assistant Professor of Arthropod Biodiversity position open at UC Berkeley in California aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05523

That's not excessive. THIS is excessive:

I think Eriocera spinosa might be the funniest tipulid, as a practical joke played on preparators

Been trying to rear out adults from rat tailed maggots but they never seem to eclose (2 of these are about a month old). Anyone have success? @flygirlnhm.bsky.social @dipteracourse.bsky.social

Superb Ant-hill Hoverfly (Xanthogramma pedissequum). Recorded in our wildspace garden today. The larvae of this species feed on aphids inside ant nests. @dipteristsforum.bsky.social @hoverflyspotter.bsky.social

Today a male Cistogaster globosa I believe, to go along with a female yesterday. Great to record both sexes in our #wildspaces garden. Not an every day occurrence in NE Essex. @dipteristsforum.bsky.social @chrismothman.bsky.social @norfolkbutterflies.bsky.social @chrisraper.bsky.social

Back in civilization after 2 weeks in the Costa Rican jungle. It was an amazing experience full of spectacular flies (+other creatures) as well as a truly wonderful group of students & instructors. The memories made will last a lifetime. ☺️ 🥰 Can't wait for the next #Diptera adventure! #FlySchool2026

And if you want to see what they look like up close, here's a composite image I made (thanks to Nolan for collecting and wrangling them for me) #Periscelididae: #Stenomicra #FlySchool2026

Another great video of the #Periscelididae: #Stenomicra by #FlySchool2026 student Nolan Lake (the students are calling them "pac-man" flies 😂)

Not only are #Periscelididae very cute, some of the less spectacular-looking spp. are hypnotic dancers 💃🕺 #Stenomicra shuffles back & forth, easily gliding across surfaces. This large genus is found in the tropics often on banana leaves, etc. #FlySchool2026 Costa Rica 📽️: Nolan Lake [more ⬇️]

Heads up folks Some Tabanidae that were sampled from the Canopy Tower at the Soltis Center, Costa Rica These images show both differences in eye patterns & antennal branching. Sadly the eye patterns disappear as they desicate so images are important #FlySchool2026 @dipteracourse.bsky.social

OK I thought Scutops was cute, but OMG #NEOscutops is amazing! 😍 I'm now convinced #Periscelididae is, per species, the weirdest family of flies (more evidence from another genus to drop later). #FlySchool2026 Costa Rica [And yes, @americanbeetles.bsky.social, it's cool partly because of beetle]

Smacked it without looking, thinking it was just another Eastern Saltmarsh Mosquito. Doesn’t seem to have been harmed much. #deerfly

I am thrilled to share that I will join the American Museum of Natural History @amnh.org as the Dean of Collections, Curator, and Professor in September!

Five years back in Berlin, and >650 species new to science. From crop-disease vectors to soil predators, CIBD researchers are bringing biology’s “dark matter” into the light—naming species so we can study, monitor and protect them. Explore: lnkd.in/e_uiKJwb

Hoverflies on Snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus) in my S. Cambridgeshire garden. Female Volucella zonaria Female Volucella inanis Female Volucella pellucens Male Myathropa florea #Diptera #Syrphidae #Hoverflies

This is what my camera roll looks like during #FlySchool2026 (and as it did during Fly School III in 2024) 😂

Helophilus pendulus, ‘The footballer’, from Edward Donovan’s ‘The natural history of British insects’, vol. 1 (London, 1792). S391.c.79.1 @theulspeccoll.bsky.social #Hoverflies #Diptera