2021 March 27 afternoon

 

   Rosemary Jorna sends pictures of flies from the Kemp Lake area.   She points out that the first two are the same species that she photographed last year and which we identified then as:

                          Certainly Empididae    Probably Empis    Possibly  Empis barbatoides.

She says they put her off her dinner, and she’s glad they aren’t her size.

 

  Jeremy Tatum writes:  The third fly, in its actual size, would more likely put me off my dinner than the empidids.   I don’t know exactly what it is, although I think it is most likely one of the Calliphoridae.

 

Probably Empis (Dip.: Empididae)  Rosemary Jorna

 

Probably Empis (Dip.: Empididae)  Rosemary Jorna

 

Diptera, probably Calliphoridae     Rosemary Jorna

 

   Ian Cooper has been continuing wandering, on bicycle, along the Galloping Goose Trail in the middle of the night.  He photographed these creatures in the dead of night.  I don’t think any of us would like to meet them if they were our size.

 

Callobius pictus (Ara.: Amaurobiidae) Ian Cooper

 

Unidentified sheetweb spider (Ara.: Linyphiidae)  Ian Cooper

 

Unidentified sheetweb spider (Ara.: Linyphiidae)  Ian Cooper

 

Eratigena (probably duellica) (Ara: Agelenidae)   Ian Cooper

 

Flat-backed Millepede (Polydesmida:  Eurymerodesmidae) Ian Coope

 

     Almost as difficult as identifying millepedes is deciding how to spell them.  Millipede or millepede?  I can think of convincing arguments to support either spelling.  After arguing with myself for a while, I persuaded myself that we can make finer use of the English language if we distinguish between “milli” to mean a thousandth part of, as in millimetre, and “mille” if we mean a thousand, as in millepede.   To use the same spelling for both uses blurs its meaning and weakens our language.