Flies

[lesno1]

1

2

3

[Shadowman]

Nice shots.

[Thornton]

Number 1 is particularly interesting. What is it doing? It looks like it’s about to eat a gobstopper (well, a fly gobstopper, anyhow).

Julian

[lesno1]

No idea what it is doing no 2 was taken seconds after

[Thornton]

No idea what it is doing no 2 was taken seconds after

So it looks like the “gobstopper” went into its mouth. This is really interesting. I did a quick Google image search of flies eating but don’t see anything like this. I wonder if someone on an insect forum could throw any light on it.

Julian

[Astro]

I'm not an entomologist, and no expert on the behavior of flies but I know that they 'taste' through their feet and have to liquefy their food first and then suck it up because they dont have mouth parts to bite or chew. They regurgitate some already consumed food which has digestive enzymes and saliva in it. The enzymes begin breaking down the solid food, gradually turning it into a slurry the fly can then suck up.

Doing a little research I 'discovered' the following...

During long post‐feeding periods, adult tephritid flies (and apparently other non‐blood feeding Diptera and even Hymenoptera) engage in behaviour consisting of oral extrusion and aeration of liquid droplets of varying size (‘bubbling’), proboscis pumping, and occasional deposition of regurgitate on the substrate that is followed by subsequent re‐ingestion.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-3032.1992.tb01193.x

So I would guess this charming creature is doing something similar and bubbling!

I am reminded of similar behaviour for entirely different reasons exhibited by 'youthful' humans some many decades back

[Thornton]

That is interesting, James, thanks for the explanation. Les was fortunate to capture a really nice shot of this in action.

Julian

[lesno1]

Yes thankyou James i have been puzzled by this i think your explanation is spot on