Happy Flies

I see this strange fly fairly often and actually have blipped it several months ago.

At first sight, it looks like a wasp with those long, white tipped antennae. But on closer examination, you will see that the antennae are actually the front pair of legs pretending to be antennae. The actual antennae are the very short blades, just in front of the eyes, with a small hair protruding from them, this is typical of flies.

The mouth parts are a sucker arrangement rather than the jaws of a wasp. The other clue is the single pair of wings, the rear wings replaced by halteres, a counter balance thing, but not visible in this image unfortunately.

It is always a good idea to pretend to be something nasty and unpalatable and what could be better than a wasp.

Dave