Bottle-green Semaphore Fly

These flies are easily capable of skating about on the surface of ponds, where they mate and hunt.

Species introduction

At a glance
Latin name: 
Poecilobothrus nobilitatus
Family: 
Long-legged flies
Family Latin name: 
DOLICHOPODIDAE
Category: 
Insects other

Species description

Species description

The Bottle-green Semaphore Fly (Poecilobothrus nobilitatus) has a bright green thorax. While females are difficult to identify, males have very distinctive white wing tips. These flies are easily capable of skating about on the surface of ponds, and this is where most of their mating and hunting happens. As a result of their mate-selection behaviour, these flies have been studied in great depth. They are common in the south of England, and because the males are easily identified it has been found that their range is gradually spreading northward as a result of climate change, an observation made in Britain and Sweden.

Species photographs

Larger photograph(s) (click to magnify)
These flies are easily capable of skating about on the surface of ponds, where they mate and hunt.
The Bottle-green Semaphore Fly (<em>Poecilobothrus nobilitatus</em>) has a bright green thorax.

Details

Species family information

There are more than 7,000 known members of this long-legged fly family. They are small flies with prominent eyes. The majority have long legs. Males have large genitalia - which help with identification. These types of flies are usually predatory or are scavengers.

Category information

Insects evolved in the Ordovician from a crustacean ancestral lineage as terrestrial invertebrates with six legs (the Hexapoda). This was the time when terrestrial plants first appeared. In the Devonian some insects developed wings and flight, the first animals to do so. An early flying group was the Odonata from the Carboniferous, the damselflies and dragonflies, which have densely-veined wings and long, ten-segmented bodies. They are day-flying carnivores, with an aquatic larval stage, so are commonly seen flying near water. The carnivorous larvae are called nymphs. Odonata species are short-lived, damselflies surviving for 2-4 weeks, dragonflies for up to 2 months.

Some insect groups in the Cretaceous co-evolved with the flowering plants, and they have had a close association ever since. These groups are the Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, and ants), the Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), the Diptera (flies), and the Coleoptera (beetles). The diversity of beetles is astonishing. Of all the known animal species on the planet, one in five is a beetle!