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Hybomitra sp.
A little bigger than a housefly, this fly has brilliant green eyes (when alive--I've photographed them dead and the eyes didn't look the same) and an abdomen banded with brown and black.
Coastal temperate rainforest. Found drifting in the dishwater.
Check the wicked dagger-like mouthpart. I believe this to be a type of horse fly but can't nail down the Latin name. I haven't been able to find any other postings of horseflies from the west coast on PN; are they that rare or that difficult to photograph? True, they only seem to come out for a few months of the year.
5 Comments
I believe this is a species of Horse Fly. I think you are looking at either Genus Tabanus or Genus Hybomitra. None of the Deer Fly species I looked through have the horizontal eye stripes. Here are a couple of links that may help.
Hybomitra: http://bugguide.net/node/view/11494/bgpa...
Tabanus: http://bugguide.net/node/view/11452/bgpa...
I tend to agree with you. The horse flies I've seen are really big, and black. These are more brown and slimmer.
actually, it looks like a deer fly in the Hybomitra genera. The Western Horse Fly is usually the species scene in OR. Bother horse flies and deer flies have those nice looking and colorful eyes. The body of the fly suggests a deer fly.
http://greennature.com/article499.html
3/4" to 1" long. Not quite as big as I've seen them in northern Minnesota, but larger than a deer fly.
Yep, a horsefly. How large was it?