Long-legged fly
Dolichopodidae · Flies
Long-legged fly on lily
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 13 August 2026
A long-legged fly on a spotted lily petal in the August border, its metallic green catching the light. The family runs to a few thousand species worldwide, most of them tiny predators of even smaller insects on leaf surfaces, and this one belongs to Condylostylus, the genus most often noticed in gardens here.
The metallic green body and the long legs are the marks. They hunt on foot across a leaf, and the whole life of one is spent within a few yards of where it hatched.
Long-legged fly
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 13 August 2026
A long-legged fly balanced at the very tip of a serrated leaf in the August border, its body carrying the metallic, oil-on-water sheen that gives the family its common name. They are flies of damp, shaded leaves in every garden, and they hunt on foot.
Active hunters rather than nectar feeders, working leaf surfaces for smaller insects as often as catching anything on the wing. The males of many species court with a dance, waving ornamented legs at the female.
Long-legged fly
Great Dixter, 7 June 2025
A long-legged fly on the tip of a petal at Great Dixter in June, wings held out flat. These are flies of damp, shaded leaves in every garden in the world, and they hunt smaller insects on foot across the surface of a leaf as much as on the wing.
The metallic, oil-on-water sheen across the body is the identifying mark of the family. The males of many species have ornamented legs or wings that they wave at females in a courtship dance, which is a lot of effort for something three millimetres long.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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