Normski4ash - Macro Photography
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Horse Flies & Marsh flies
These are large flies which can give a painful bite. Adult horse flies feed on nectar and sometimes pollen but females require a blood meal for reproduction. Males lack the necessary mouth parts for blood feeding. Most female horse flies feed on mammal blood, but some species are known to feed on birds, amphibians or reptiles. Unlike insects which surreptitiously puncture the skin with needle-like organs, horse flies have tiny, serrated mandibles which they use to rip and/or slice flesh apart.
Notch Horned Cleg Fly - Haematopota pluvialis
The eyes are hairy and the mottled wings are held 'rooflike' at rest, and the 1st antennal segment is notched near the tip in the female. Like most flies in this family, the eyes reflect light in patterns. Found Around horses, cattle, etc, and often in damper or well wooded areas.
Black-horned Cleg - Haematopota crassicornis
The Haematopota genus is distinctive due to the mottled wings. H. crassicornis has a greyish abdomen and all-black antennae. H. pluvialis is the other common species in this genus and very similar though tends to have a brown rather than grey appearance. The males of both species have eye-bands that stop halfway up, while females of both species have eye-bands over the whole of the eyes. However males of pluvialis have an orange third antennal segment.
Marsh Fly - Coremacera marginata
iThe adults are 7 to10 millimetres long. The prominent eyes and the legs are reddish brown. The brown or yellowish antennae are forward-pointing, with a hairy 3rd segment and a whitish arista. The dark grey wings are mottled by many greyish spots and with a blackish border.