Fantastic Fly II

I found another fantastic fly with long eye stalks! Although this guy looks very similar in appearance to members of the Diopsidae (Stalk-eyed Flies Family) it belongs to the family Tephritidae (commonly called Peacock Flies) a group of colourful fruit-flies that do not usually have stalk eyes, so I was told. These photos were taken at the same place where I photographed my first "eye-stalked fly" (see my earlier post Fantastic Fly).

My neice said it looks like a motorcycle (with the eye-stalks as the handles)! So maybe Mat Rempit* Fly or Hell's Angel Fly! I used to think of them as "hammerhead" flies.

I hope some Dipterist (=fly scientist) would see this post and enlighten us on the identity of this fantastic insect.

*Mat Rempit is the Malay word describing the daredevil (illegal) motorbikes racers that plague the streets in many cities and towns in Malaysia.

Fantastic Fly

So far I have not posted any photo of Borneo's insects, not that we don't have our share of interesting insects, in fact our island is one of the richest places on earth entomologically! So to be fair to the millions of insects my new year's first post is about one of their kind!

Here's a fly! It may not look like one, reminds you of a hammer-head shark, doesn't it? But it's a member of the Diopsidae family in the Order Diptera, thus it is a true fly. Several species of stalk-eyed flies are found in Borneo, but due to their small size, they are seldom noticed.

I have not been able to get this specimen identified to its genus and species, but would post its ID here as soon as I got it. In the mean time I would welcome any comments or help in identifying this fantastic looking creature (some may say weird, but I think it's just wondrous looking, quaint, if you like but definitely not weird).