Robber fly
Asilidae · Flies
Robber fly
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 13 August 2026
A robber fly, family Asilidae - ambush predators that take other insects out of the air from a lookout perch like this one, killing prey with a stabbing bite from a short, stout proboscis rather than the sponging mouthparts of most flies. The bearded face is a genuine adaptation: bristles that shield the eyes from a struggling victim.
Robber fly
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 13 August 2026
A robber fly on a lookout perch in the August border, family Asilidae, an ambush predator of other insects found on sunny open ground everywhere.
They take prey out of the air from a perch like this one, killing with a stabbing bite from a short, stout proboscis rather than the sponging mouthparts of most flies. The bearded face is a genuine adaptation: bristles that shield the eyes from a struggling victim.
Robber fly with prey
Arverne Preserve, 20 June 2026
A robber fly on the open sandy ground at Arverne with what is left of a meal. Robber flies are hunters of sunny open ground everywhere, and the white band near the tip of the abdomen, in front of a dark, swollen end, marks a male Efferia, one of the commonest genera on exactly this kind of coastal sand.
They hunt other insects on the wing, dropping onto prey from a perch and stabbing it with a short, heavy proboscis that both kills and liquefies from the inside. The bristled face and the sunken groove between the eyes, arranged to shield them from a struggling meal, are family features shared across the whole group; the species within the genus is not something a photograph settles.
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