Robber Fly - Blog Posts

Northeastern Hammertails (Efferia aestuans), females, taken July 15, 2024, in New Hampshire, US

I have too many pictures of these things... They were the beginning of my love of robber flies! You can't see in these images, but females of this genus can be distinguished from males by the large blade-like ovipositors on the end of their abdomen, while males have a white strip on the abdomen and a large hammer-shaped bulge on the end, hence their name! Two of these ladies are enjoying tasty moth (left) and plant bug (right) meals, while the third looks to have recently had a meal herself, if her enlarged abdomen is anything to go by!

Gray Goggle Eye (Holcocephala calva), taken July 19, 2023, in Georgia, US

One of the first pictures I took with my clip-on macro lens. The ones that you clip onto your phone camera are extremely good for getting decent quality images of small inverts. These robber flies are surprisingly brave considering their size, much more so than their larger cousins, who let you get just close enough and then fly a couple feet away lol!