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Another bug ....

Well, the forum seems to be on a roll w/ bugs lately so I figured I'd share my latest 'moment' ...

I was sitting on our deck just watching one of the hummingbirds and listening to all the critters - basically just chilling ....

.... a fly / bug landed on my left upper arm. Since I've always had an interest in bugs, my 1st instinct is to check it out (vs squashing it or shooing it away). What I saw shocked me - big time.

About 8 inches from my face sat a ~3/4" fly w/ swept-back wings, an unusually large probocsis and an abdomen w/ an absolutely perfect scorpion-stinger tail. The full upcurve and the forward-facing stinger coming out of a bulbous segment. I saw it - knew I was having some sort of hallucination - and looked again. I studied the tail and still couldn't believe what I was seeing - a bug with a full scorpion tail sitting on my arm - a few inches from my face. It flew away (very weakly - like it was very tail-heavy). I grabbed my camera but could not relocate it.

I did some Google searches and couldn't come up with an exact match but this gives the general idea Scorpion Fly At least I know I wasn't totally nuts. In all my years of watching bugs - had no idea that something like this even existed - much less in New Jersey!
 
WOW! Among the most vicious looking harmless creatures of all time! lol Thanks for sharing- no idea something like this even existed...

Looks like Dr. Seuss got in to the genetics lab again!
 
I'm not sure I would have let it sit and studied it for any length of time. Kinda freaky looking !
 
I have seen those before.
I think I have a macro shot of 1 somewhere...
 
Ron,
 Try looking up Ichneumon wasps, they have scorpion like tails also and can be found in NJ.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (NJnewbie @ Aug. 01 2006,4:57)]Try looking up Ichneumon wasps, they have scorpion like tails also and can be found in NJ.
These wasps (Ichneumon) have longer tails and are more common. I've seen them quite frequently.

When I say the Scorpion Fly in the pic isn't quite the same as what I saw, I mean that I think the one I saw had some white on it's antennas. Other than that - it was a complete match - a flying scorpion with extended mouth parts ...
 
Whoa!

Sometimes I feel like we missed out on something important living in this day and age by being exposed to most of the animals in the world since we could walk.

Beyond deep-sea diving we just don't get to have that sense of wonder those explorers from centuries ago got to have.

But every once in a while I see an animal I haven't seen or heard of before, and I try to feel as much wonder as I can muster.
smile.gif
 
I LOVE SCORPION FLIES! i catch them by their wings and their little tails try to 'sting' me. its so funny!
Alex
 
I have seen some pretty weird lookin bugs around the Niagara area the last few summers.. I am pretty sure I saw one of thes type things, only the scorpion tail seemed a lot smaller and more "upright" in relation to the rest of the bug, and from what I remember the bug looked a bit more like a firefly.

I often wonder how many insects might be "new" or at least highly mutated/evolved over short periods of time and thus unstudied/discovered. Is it possible that there are "new" bugs every year, or is it just that I notice more and more of them, and migration accounts more for the seemingly "new" ones??
 
  • #10
Scorpion fly look cute to me. Look what I keep in my chamber (Damon variegatus):

Daemons_Variegatus_2_by_dom1234.jpg
 
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