A Brief Encounter with a Gem of a Fly

Tiny, jewel-toned fly. I pause to inspect you as you pause on a leaf, to my eye not doing much of anything at all. To be honest, I appreciate your utter lack of interest in me, after an hour spent swatting, brushing and tossing my head madly in futile attempts to ward off the abundant gnats, mosquitoes, and other assorted winged beings attempting to dine on my body.

What is your life like, shiny little fly? What do you spend your days doing…eating and flying? Wooing mates? Do you travel far to find other shiny flies like yourself, or if I took the time to examine other leaves nearby would I find them? Where do you sleep?

Why is your shiny metallic body colored so divinely? What semaphore signals do you send with those delicate, patterned wings?

I try to learn more about you. With assistance from Insects of Iowa’s ID Tool, I tentatively identify you as a long-legged fly, Condylostylus sp. Tantalizing pieces of information about your mating habits (“Adults mate after elaborate and unique behavior, involving the males displaying their legs to the female.”*–who wouldn’t be intrigued by that?) lead me, with a mild, familiar pang at yet another unsavory entry in my search history, to search for “Condylostylus mating.”

There are small tidbits of information to be found. According to insectidentification.org, “Males have tufts of hair on their feet that are usually seen best during courtship dancing. This genteel behavior is needed in order to attract females.” Well, that sounds like a charming event!

Alas, the one video I was able to find shows a wooing that is too fast or too subtle for my clumsy human eyes. I slow the speed in a vain attempt to see the tufted feet or other moves of the persistent male. I can only conclude that, not being a long-legged fly, the entire scene is lost on me.

Such is the mysterious life of a fly. The quiet communion of a moment shared at a leaf along the Greenway, two lives that intersect at this one tangent. It is safe to assume that the effect was more profound on me than it was on the fly.

*https://bugguide.net/node/view/42317

Originally published on Sycamore Greenway Friends.