There is always stiff competition for the coveted prize. I feel most honored to have managed a couple myself. Both Newan and Bayucca have incredible images up there at the moment, so our humble fly has a lot to compete with.
In my humble opinion, this spotting deserved SOTD, unfortunately it is already a couple of weeks old. Had we made this progress earlier, I feel sure it would have received the accolade.
GM - you have made a super start and your standard of photography is good. But as Mark has hinted at, this is not like collecting football cards. We want to record as much useful information as possible. This does not mean copying and pasting from other articles - this is just a waste of time and effort.
What I am talking about is real information from observation. Most of the time, the observations will not be original and will already be common knowledge. BUT, just occasionally, we will see something original. We might not even know it at the time, but writing observations down leads to an increase in your knowledge AND ours.
Great start and keep it up. Hope you don't feel patronized, not my intention.
You have a wealth to draw on in that part of India. Looking forward to your finds. Please try to add a small text about the situation you find them in.
Indeed. Very few people are interested in flies compared with other bugs and so the coverage is relatively small. Even armed with the correct identification, I was unable to come up with another image for corroboration. But, the source looks strong enough to quote.
This all makes this spotting a bit special, so well done GM, a super spotting.
I don't think you are there yet. I found a picture and tantalizingly close to a link, but could not get anything to work:
https://www.idmarch.org/document/Bombyliidae/dKqp-show/CHECKLIST+OF+INDIAN+BEE-FLIES+%28INSECTA%3A+DIPTERA%3A+BOMBYLIIDAE%29+BULGANIN+MITRA+AND+R.M.SHARMA*+Zoological+Survey+of+India%2C+Kolkata%5Bremoved%5D+*Zoological+Survey+of+India%2C+Central+Zone+Regional+Centre%2C+Jabalpur%5Bremoved%5De-mail%3A
Have a look, see if it leads you anywhere.
Dave
Good luck with it, flies are not the easiest subjects to research. I am busy at the moment, otherwise I would have had a go myself. It will be a few months before I can get back to bugs.
This is a great spotting.
From the way the fly stands with its wings held out, this is almost certainly Bombyliidae and should narrow down your search for an ID. Here are a couple of links that should help you find an answer:
http://www.diptera.info/forum/index.php
http://bugguide.net/node/view/15740
Dave
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