A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Project Noah Nature School
Odontomera sp.
I found this fly honey color on a leaf of guava, feeding on eggs of another fly, silverleaf whitefly, I suppose.
Ant mimicry is mimicry of ants by other organisms. Ants are abundant all over the world, and predators that rely on vision to identify their prey such as birds and wasps normally avoid them, either because they are unpalatable, or aggressive. Thus some other arthropods mimic ants to escape predation (protective mimicry).
I found this Ant mimic spider the month of May: http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/248... I had never seen it. Just found out that it was a spider because descended in web, showing up, up and down. Thank you again.
Yes, I saw! That's one of my favorite things about Project Noah. Someone like you teaches me something, and it leads to more reading and research and suddenly I know a bunch of things I didn't know before and have a whole new area of interest. Thanks so much for opening up a new door ...
Hi, Suzanne Monk. I found an explanation in the wiki about why a fly evolved to mimic an ant. I put in the notes. Thanks. :)
Nice one, Sckel, another ant mimic! Did you see the ant mimic spiders earlier this week? I'll have to go read up on the advantages of looking like an ant!
LaurenZarate, I think the white things on the leaf are eggs of this insect: http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/229...
LaurenZarate, you're right. I could not imagine it to be ant-mimic fly. Thank you for ID.
Hi Sckel. I think this neat fly is a species of Odontomera in the Family Richardiidae (Part of the Tephritoidea Superfamily). They are ant mimics (myrmecomorphy). If this was really eating white fly eggs, maybe it is a female ingesting protein for her own egg production.
Spotted on Jul 21, 2013
Submitted on Jul 21, 2013
