Another Creature From the Rose Bush

My friends at Bugguide.net identify this as a female March Fly or Bibio. Just in time, I'd say; two more days and she'd need a different name. The rose bush is turning out to be quite a universe. In addition to everything I saw there on Thursday, today I found two flies that I've never seen before and about a one inch ball of baby spiders. A spider ball is quite a phenomenon--each individual is about the size of a pinhead; they mass together I guess for protection, but the slightest breeze ripples through the colony and they fan out like silk and then come back together into a tight ball. It's a lovely thing to see--like seaweed, or wind through a field of grass.