Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Diptera
Suborder: Nematocera
Infraorder: Tipulomorpha
Family: Tipulidae (crane flies)
Subfamily: Tipulinae
Genus: Nephrotoma (Tiger Crane Flies)
| This page is for the families within the Diptera order |
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Family Tipulidae. Crane flies. Family Muscidae House flies Family Calliphoridae Blow flies Family Tabanidae Horse and Deer flies Family Bombyliidae Bee flies Family Culicidae Mosquitoes |
| This is a lady Crane Fly. Picture taken 11 Jun 2008, resting on a leaf
of the Virginia Creeper vine. It is about 3/4" long, not counting the long legs.
Kingdom: Animalia |
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| Two years later, almost to the day, here is a pair of
Crane flies doing their thing on the same Virginia Creeper vine, at just about the same
location in the vine. Picture taken 10 Jun 2010.
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| This one has some similarities to a Crane Fly, mostly the long legs. It was found on 29 August 2009 early in the morning, when the illumination was just one small CF bulb. I came back later after the sun was up, but the fly had departed. |
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| House Fly, picture taken 13 July 2008 in Colorado Springs.
The second picture was taken 18 June 2008, in Colorado Springs,
and shows eggs that have been laid in the dog's food dish. The eggs are a little
over 1 mm in length. The larvae (maggots) will hatch in less than a day, and grow to
a length of 3 - 9 mm in length. Later, the maggot will transform into pupae, and
adult flies will emerge from the pupae. A female fly will be ready for mating within
about 36 hours.
Kingdom: Animalia
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| A pair of flies, identification not done yet. Seen at the Fountain Creek Nature Center on 28 June 2009. | 
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| A Blow-fly, AKA Blow Fly or Blowfly.
More specically, it is probably a Green Bottle Fly.
Picture taken 12 July 2008 in
Colorado Spring, Colorado. The back is uniformly green; my camera made it look two-toned.
The identification was made by the folks at www.bugguide.net.
Kingdom: Animalia |
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| A Horse Fly. This was a large male, between 3/4" and 1" not counting legs.
The picture was taken in El Paso County, Colorado on 15 July 2008. There are about 350 species
of Horseflies in North America, and about 3,000 world wide. This species is the Western Horse Fly, Tanabus puncitifer.
Kingdom: Animalia | 
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| This is a Bee Fly. This family of flies are called Bee Flies because by evolution,
they have taken on the appearance of a bee, and hence avoid being eaten by predators that avoid bees.
They do not have stingers.
It is about 3/8" long, at the Fountain Creek Nature Center on 20 September 2008.
There are several species in the genus Poecilanthrax, but maybe this is willistonii.
Kingdom: Animalia | 
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| Another Bee fly, this one in the Genus Anastoechus.
Species not determined yet.
It is about 1/4" long, at the Fountain Creek Nature Center on 20 September 2008.
Kingdom Animalia (Animals) | 
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| More Bee flies, these found on 2 October 2009 in a Marigold patch in Colorado Springs, CO. Identified as flies since they have two wings, not four, and as Bee Flies since they look like bees. Further identification has not been made yet. |  
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| Mosquito. This photo was taken on 20 August 2008 at the Fountain Creek Nature Center,
from one of their ponds. It is a larva, about 1.5mm long, so it barely fit in the field of view
of my microscope at x100 magnification. There are about 40 genera, and over 150 species in the United
States alone.
The larva hatched from an egg, and in turn will transform into a pupa, which in turn will result in an adult mosquito, which in turn will lay more eggs. A male mosquito will live only about a week, while the female mosquito, the only one that bites, will live about a month.
Kingdom: Animalia | 
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| This is the larva of some variety of Mosquito. It is about 3mm in length.
When I first saw it, I thought it was a mosquito larva, since it is about the same size
and had the same jerky motions.
But it lacks the air tube at the tail end that is visible in the photo above.
I am still researching this, but I believe that at some stages of development,
the air tube drops off.
It came from the Mosquito pond at the Fountain Creek Nature center on 25 July 2009. I used a Canon DSLR camera with the lens on a bellows extension for close-up work.
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