While recently poking about a local prairie patch, thinking to make a few photos of butterflies and blacked-eyed Susans, I chanced upon a humble bumble bee working a pink clump of fragrant milkweed. Deciding it might make a good shot, I zoomed in, focused and—just getting started—clicked off a single image.
Huh? Something fast and shadowy swooped through the viewfinder. The bee suddenly disappeared.
I lowered the camera and began looking around…and there on a nearby stem was the answer: the breakfasting bumble bee had become breakfast for a marauding robber fly.
Talk about a good morning gone bad!
Robber flies are the insect equivalent of saber-tooth tigers. Fast-flying aerial predators with sharp eyesight and a proboscis designed for stabbing, through which they inject a powerful neurotoxic venom along with digestive juices to liquify their victim's innards—which the robber fly then sucks up like a sort of smoothie.
Amazing creatures, really. Though truly bad news if you're a bee. The old folks sometimes called them a "bee panther." Which is pretty apt…and puts me in mind of that old Ogden Nash ditty: "When called by a panther, don't anther."
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12 comments:
Grizz: Great images, great story, and good information about the robber fly. Thanks; I'm glad I "stopped by."
Scott...
I see one or more zooming around most days when I'm out and about, but I'm always amazed by how fast and accurately they can nail a bee or other insect, regardless of whether their chosen prey is also on the wing or resting. Really astonishingly effective predators. I'm just glad they're not the size of pit bulls!
Hi Grizz - great photos and great lesson of nature's ways - wow. thanks my friend :-)
Love Gail
peace.....
Gail…
Thank you. I bet you're enjoying this cooler turn of weather. I know I am!
Hey, saw your zucchini photo…though I guess I'd better restrain myself and leave it at that! Ha!
Be good! Take care.
Huh! Robber flies. That's a new one for me. But it's always fun(for me) to learn new things.
Hi Grizz - too funny about the zucchini photo. Folks wonderin' if I thought it was 'small' what did I consider larger? :-) Please don't restrain, no need to be shy around me.
And ya, the cooler temps are slowly arriving today - phew.....
Love Gail
peace.....
KGMom…
I like learning, too, and the bug world is sure a place where I know little about so many fascinating creatures—robber flies being one. For example, they're so aggressive and adapt at aerial interception, they'll occasionally nail a ruby-throat hummingbird! Amazing!
Gail...
Nope, not going there. I'm not shy, but I occasionally know when to keep my mouth shut. š
It was a delicious 57 degrees when I got up at 5:30 this morning. Wonderful!
Robber flies, new one for me. Reminds me of the time driving in the country. I pulled to a stop at an unguarded railroad crossing, looked and listened for a train. Then spied a dragonfly clatter to rest on an upright piece of vegetation at the road side. As the dragonfly rested briefly, I idly watched, contemplating dragonfly reality. Suddenly a non description bird swooped in and dragonfly became just another tasty snack. Last I saw of the dragonfly, one wing and the tail were showing outside of a beak. Then the bird took it's dragonfly snack on an aerial tour. I was not invited.
John Whiting…
Having practically lived in the woods and fields and along the creek banks all my life, I've watched the scenario you described with the bird snatching up the dragonfly played out countless times—and not just between birds and bugs, but all manner of creeping, crawling, flying, flitting, swimming, hopping, and slithering creatures. It's an eat-and-get-eaten world out there beyond the doorstep. Witnessing this fundamental truth in action—nature in the swift and bloodthirsty raw, so to speak—never fails to amaze and astonish, as well as send a little shiver of dread and horror up my spine. There but for the grace of God…
All life depends on death. Even the most devout vegetarian survives only by the demise of other living creatures. We exist, survive, on the carcasses of others. No one is unaccountable, there's no escaping such necessity.
And BTW, robber flies are one of those things I learned about because of first making a photo. I'd aways seen them around, but until a few years ago and my first photo of one, never knew their name or anything other than the fact they swooped about and caught other insects—mostly bees. Making photos has made me a far better observer, increased my fields skills considerably, and taught me countless nature lessons. I'm not all that great an expert, just curious and a "by necessity" informed shutterbug.
I just went from happy to horrified in four seconds flat. I don't begrudge the robber fly a meal, though. Great photos!
Jain…
Good to hear from you. And for sure, nature can occasionally be brutally graphic—a bug eat bug world. Everybody's gotta have their dinner!
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