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Small insect moving about and rubbing its front legs together. Notice the white tips of its front legs. Spotted in the hiking trail up a hill. Pictures unfortunately are not so clear as I had hoped for :-(
Spotted on Sep 11, 2011
Submitted on Sep 19, 2011
4 Comments
Hi Gordon. Thanks for the ID. It was indeed waving those front legs all the time. I just thought it was rubbing or cleaning itself. Never realized it was a defense mechanism :-)
Thanks Ashish but I think Gordon is right. :-)
Probably a stilt-legged fly. Notice the white foot that it is waving about. This is a behavior used by stilt-legged flies, probably to mimic the more dangerous ichneumon wasps to deter predation. I just commented on another stilt-legged fly spotting (see http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/726...) and my stilt-legged spotting at http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/540....
Crane fly..?