Well, the forum seems to be on a roll w/ bugs lately so I figured I'd share my latest 'moment' ...
I was sitting on our deck just watching one of the hummingbirds and listening to all the critters - basically just chilling ....
.... a fly / bug landed on my left upper arm. Since I've always had an interest in bugs, my 1st instinct is to check it out (vs squashing it or shooing it away). What I saw shocked me - big time.
About 8 inches from my face sat a ~3/4" fly w/ swept-back wings, an unusually large probocsis and an abdomen w/ an absolutely perfect scorpion-stinger tail. The full upcurve and the forward-facing stinger coming out of a bulbous segment. I saw it - knew I was having some sort of hallucination - and looked again. I studied the tail and still couldn't believe what I was seeing - a bug with a full scorpion tail sitting on my arm - a few inches from my face. It flew away (very weakly - like it was very tail-heavy). I grabbed my camera but could not relocate it.
I did some Google searches and couldn't come up with an exact match but this gives the general idea Scorpion Fly At least I know I wasn't totally nuts. In all my years of watching bugs - had no idea that something like this even existed - much less in New Jersey!
I was sitting on our deck just watching one of the hummingbirds and listening to all the critters - basically just chilling ....
.... a fly / bug landed on my left upper arm. Since I've always had an interest in bugs, my 1st instinct is to check it out (vs squashing it or shooing it away). What I saw shocked me - big time.
About 8 inches from my face sat a ~3/4" fly w/ swept-back wings, an unusually large probocsis and an abdomen w/ an absolutely perfect scorpion-stinger tail. The full upcurve and the forward-facing stinger coming out of a bulbous segment. I saw it - knew I was having some sort of hallucination - and looked again. I studied the tail and still couldn't believe what I was seeing - a bug with a full scorpion tail sitting on my arm - a few inches from my face. It flew away (very weakly - like it was very tail-heavy). I grabbed my camera but could not relocate it.
I did some Google searches and couldn't come up with an exact match but this gives the general idea Scorpion Fly At least I know I wasn't totally nuts. In all my years of watching bugs - had no idea that something like this even existed - much less in New Jersey!