Robber Fly - Asilidae

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Robber fly (Michotamia aurata) kill an assassin bug


The family Asilidae, which belongs to the order Diptera, is referred to as robber flies or assassin flies. The Asilidae family is widely distributed in different parts of the world with an estimated 7000 species that have been described by entomologists.

Michotamia aurata

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Although there are minor variances in size and color, almost all species in the Asilidae family are muscular and robust, have a lot of hair around the neck, an elongated abdomen, and spiky legs with extremely strong grips.


Machimus arthriticus

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The common name "robber fly" refers to their predatory aggressive behavior. Robber flies typically kill their prey using their short, sturdy proboscis, in contrast to other predatory insects that do it with their strong jaws.

Ommatius tibialis

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The proboscis can even spear a grasshopper or wasp that is much larger than them with a sharp sucking hypopharynx. And, astonishingly, they surprise prey and pounce while in flight.


All of the images here are my own work, taken with Xiaomi POCO NFC smartphone and an assembled external macro lens.



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Sounds like a fierce fly, particularly if you happen to be another insect!

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Cool bug ... I like this first two photos this background makes it look good 😋👌👌🍷

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We appreciate your work and your post has been manually curated by zoology team (oscurity,nelinoeva) on behalf of Amazing Nature Community. Keep up the good work!

amazinggg!!!

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Hello @akukamaruzzaman!

a complete post with their respective bibliographic sources, continue with your good work
We appreciate your work and your post was manually curated by @none! from the DNA team!

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