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Index of Subjects In October-November, we sometimes see the odd specimen of a little black "March fly" usually perched on the white siding of the house. Has anyone else been seeing unusually large numbers of these flies this year? I have a live trap in the garden and it caught another 10 today, the third such hoard since 21 October. These are small black flies ~8 mm long, in which the male has bilobed eyes with a huge upper lobe used in swarm-mating behaviour, for spotting females above which have flown up through the male swarm; the female's eyes are relatively small. These are flies from the family Bibionidae, from the "lower", older half of the Diptera (Nematocera or long-horns), and key out easily to the genus Bibio. It is hard to get much further to the actual species of Bibio -- Bugguide.net doesn't have much to offer. Does anyone happen to have identified this late-emerging Bibio as to species? The familiar name "March fly", in this case obviously inappropriate, seems to have originated in UK. One species there commonly emerges early in the year, a sign that March has arrived, and with it, finally, Spring (would we could say that here). Steve Halifax
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Index of Subjects