Festive Fly. Lauxaniid Fly, Lauxaniidae sp., on Polygonum amplexicaule, Red Bistort, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam The Netherlands
In the Autumn Garden, Red Bistort is still drawing insects: some Hoverflies, Wasps, a few Honeybees, some Ladybirds, and a small company of various Flies, mostly tiny.
Here's a small orange-yellow Lauxaniid Fly. The name was coined by 'the father of modern entomology', Pierre André Latreille (1762-1833) in 1804. But there's a problem with it. Nobody seem to know whence that name. It is said Latreille derived it from a so-called Greek word - λαύξω. The formidable Nomenclator zoologicus (1842-1846) by Louis Agassiz and modernised (2013-2014) by Elio Corte notes that that Greek word is 'untraceable', a 'parola introvabile'. Its Latin synonym is 'epulor', to feast well or to dine sumptuously. Perhaps that's what our Fly is just about to do.
Festive Fly. Lauxaniid Fly, Lauxaniidae sp., on Polygonum amplexicaule, Red Bistort, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam The Netherlands
In the Autumn Garden, Red Bistort is still drawing insects: some Hoverflies, Wasps, a few Honeybees, some Ladybirds, and a small company of various Flies, mostly tiny.
Here's a small orange-yellow Lauxaniid Fly. The name was coined by 'the father of modern entomology', Pierre André Latreille (1762-1833) in 1804. But there's a problem with it. Nobody seem to know whence that name. It is said Latreille derived it from a so-called Greek word - λαύξω. The formidable Nomenclator zoologicus (1842-1846) by Louis Agassiz and modernised (2013-2014) by Elio Corte notes that that Greek word is 'untraceable', a 'parola introvabile'. Its Latin synonym is 'epulor', to feast well or to dine sumptuously. Perhaps that's what our Fly is just about to do.