Guardian Nature School Team Contact Blog Project Noah Facebook Project Noah Twitter

A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife

Join Project Noah!
nature school apple icon

Project Noah Nature School visit nature school

Soldier Fly

Hermetia sp.

Habitat:

Garden pond on limestone outcrop in foothills of Los Serranos mountains.

Species ID Suggestions



Sign in to suggest organism ID

5 Comments

andrecoppe
andrecoppe 8 years ago

Sorry. I don't know enough to go further on identification.
Anyway, it's worth considering sexual dimorphism and development phase within a specie to assign variations you could see.

Thanks Andre and John for the help. To me there is a difference in the colour and shape of the abdomen tip, this one being orange and conical almost to a point and the other one is dark and much blunter. Is there any significance in that?

andrecoppe
andrecoppe 8 years ago

I agree with John La Salle. :)

My guess is the same given for one of your previous spotting, since I think they are the same specie. http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/184...

I hope this helps.

John La Salle
John La Salle 8 years ago

This is a fly not a wasp.
I am guessing a soldier fly (Stratiomyidae) - although always better to have a fly person pitch in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratiomyi...

andrecoppe
andrecoppe 8 years ago

There is an easy way to distinguish them (if you ignore exceptions). Flies have only a pair of wings and not two pairs as other insects.

Comunitat Valenciana, Spain

Spotted on Sep 2, 2015
Submitted on Sep 22, 2015

Related Spottings

Black Soldier Fly Black soldier fly Black soldier fly Black Soldier Fly

Nearby Spottings

Chiffchaff Small wave Broad Scarlet Broad Scarlet
Noah Guardians
Noah Sponsors
join Project Noah Team

Join the Project Noah Team