What Do You Call a Fly Which will’t Fly? [Science]

It looks terrible. It’s hairy. And it may’t fly. It’s the terrible hairy fly, or to provide it its scientific name, Mormotomyia hirsuta. The 1cm-long insect, which breeds in bat faeces, has small eyes, long legs and tiny useless wings.

Entomologists Robert Copeland and Ashley Kirk-Spriggs both on an International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology expedition , found the fly in its only known habitat, a cave-like rock cleft in Ukazi Hill east of Nairobi.  ” The fly has no obvious adaptations for clinging onto other animals for transfer from one place to another,” Copeland told Reuters . ” With its long legs, it may well perhaps wrap itself around a bat and get a ride… nevertheless it’s never been found elsewhere.”
” Since Mormotomyia cannot fly, there is a robust possibility that this is really restricted to this tiny habitat,” he continued. ” If this is the case , it’d be wonderful if the whole Ukazi Hill, on which it truly is found, were declared a national heritage area and given suitable conservation protection.”

Ernest Edward Austen, who described the species in 1936 , wrote it had ” somewhat the arrival of a spider” .

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This post is tagged: adaptations, conservation protection, insect physiology, long legs, national heritage area, robert copeland