A Massive Slab of Robber Fly

Image: Mary Keim via Flickr

Good grief! This spindly piece of nastiness is a Robber Fly in the genus Diogmites. It seems that it's members of this particular genus that are adorned with the name Hanging Thief. You may remember that this was to denote their habit of dangling from a leg or two while the other limbs held onto prey, stabbed it to death with venom and then sucked out the insides. That's all fine, obviously. But look at it! Someone call the death penalty on this thing! We need another kind of hanging! It even has a horribly long neck to accommodate our ever so righteous indignation.

Image: Thomas Shahan via Flickr

You can see the gigantic, black eyes they use for looking around. The dark mouthparts beneath are used to cut through chinks in the exoskeleton of prey. Above that is the white moustache of bristles and the antennae at the top.

Image: Wikipedia

Passing by the rather unappealing neck we reach an astonishingly hideous slab of thorax. We clearly have not got his good side. It looks like rubble, or someone trying to build a wall out of rocks they found lying about the place.

smccann27

Beneath it all are long legs that are just too thick. They look like bent straws. Red straws, because this Robber appears to have tried out a bit of fashion. I don't think it worked. Be brown! You're less obvious when you're brown!