Boreoides subulatus

Wingless Soldier Fly at Pambula Preschool

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Identification history

Unidentified

21 May 2020

elizabethgleeson

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3 comments

PaulWhitington wrote:

21 May 2020

Hi Elizabeth, This is the female of a fly in the Soldier Fly family. The females are flightless, while the males have wings. You can see a photo I took of a male here https://atlasoflife.naturemapr.org/Sightings/4259176. I've seen a lot of males and some females at our place (Wonboyn) in the last couple of weeks, so I presume this species has been mating. Some of the females have had fat abdomens, while others are skinny, like your female. The skinny ones would have laid their eggs, while the fat ones still have a load on board.

PaulWhitington wrote:

21 May 2020

The female doesn't look much like a fly. But you can see two pairs of small stumps on the back, which are where the wings and the halteres develop in the male. (Halteres are the structures that all flies have in the position where other winged insects have a second pair of wings. They send sensory information to the fly to help it keep its balance while flying. The presence of just one pair of wings and a pair of halteres is what defines an insect as a fly).

PaulWhitington wrote:

21 May 2020

I've just posted a sighting of a female I made at our place, which makes an interesting comparison. https://atlasoflife.naturemapr.org/Sightings/4260298

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