2024 June 30 morning

   Ian Cooper photographed these two ants along the Galloping Goose Trail in View Royal on June 28:

Western Black Carpenter Ant  Camponotus modoc (Hym.: Formicidae)   Ian Cooper

Red Carpenter Ant – Camponotus vicinus (Hym.: Formicidae)   Ian Cooper

Gordon Hart photographed this fly in the Highlands on June 27 at 1/3200 of a second.   Jeremy Tatum writes:  I suppose I might have been able to identify this fly by a careful and minute examination of its iridescent green eyes and the details of its wing venation – but none of that was necessary.  At the moment that I set eyes on the creature I felt the immediate and intense emotion of FEAR, and I knew immediately that this was a fly in the Family Tabanidae.  I have had this reaction of fear of tabanids all my life; it is unmistakable.  Tabanids include such flies as horse flies, deer flies, stouts, clegs.  They eat humans – alive.   Dr Rob Cannings identifies this one as Hybomitra sp.   H. distinguenda looks rather similar to this one, but Hybomitra is a large genus including several rather similar-looking flies, so we’ll leave it as Hybomitra sp.

Hybomitra  sp. (Dip.: Tabanidae)  Gordon Hart