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Project Noah Nature School
Found in a cave about 15m down from the entrance - in complete darkness.
I have never seen anything like this before and have been in this cave numerous times.
Spotted on Mar 17, 2012
Submitted on Mar 18, 2012
7 Comments
Thanks everyone. I've been reading about crane flies and most of it fits.
(From wikipedia) "Female abdomens contain eggs, and as a result appear swollen in comparison to those of males. The female abdomen also ends in a pointed ovipositor that may look somewhat like a stinger, but is completely harmless.
Adult mouthparts may occur on the end of the crane fly's long face, which is sometimes called a snout or a short rostrum."
"Have only two wings. Instead of hind wings they have club shaped balancing organs called halteres." If you look closely in the 2nd photo - between the 2nd and 3rd leg on the right hand side it does look similar to the halteres found in this photo: http://www.ozanimals.com/Insect/Crane-Fl...
But then the abdomen and snout still look like a scorpionfly so I'm not sure!
I was thinking the same thing as ChunXingWong.
Very nice!
The long snout looks like a scorpionfly and they usually have a curled tail, like a scorpion. However this is not always the case and their abdomen can be very enlarged, like your spotting is. http://www.naturephoto-cz.com/snow-scorp...
Wow. I can't help you with the ID, but nice spotting.
Looks like a fusion between a Crane fly and Scorpion fly.
Nice find.