Hanging with a golden-backed snipe fly
I caught a flash of gold while walking down a trail through the forest. I know in times past these woods were mined for pyrite, also known as fool’s gold, but I hadn’t expected to find real gold here. And yet, looking down that’s exactly what it appeared I’d found. And then the little bit of gold began moving.
Though it might blend in well in this environment, the movement of gold caught my eye.
I’d stumbled across a golden-backed snipe fly (Chrysopilus thoracicus), one of the many, many species of true flies in the world. And what a beautiful fly it is, with that back covered in little gold hairs that sometimes give the look of gold leaf someone’s applied to the back of the fly. This particular fly wasn’t very bothered by my presence. It was spending its time wandering around on the ground, so I did the best I could to keep up with it, capturing some photographs along the way.
I followed this golden-backed snipe fly as it moved around on the wet ground.
According to the Mountain Lake Biological Station of the University of Virginia, there’s actually little known about their life cycle and habits. You’d think in today’s world that everything has already been discovered, studied and understood. But the more I learn the more I realize how much we, as a species, and I, as an individual, still don’t know about the world around us and all the life that inhabits it. I find that encouraging as there’s still plenty of opportunities to discover and learn, something I very much enjoy doing.
And speaking of learning, I want to thank Stephen Gingold for teaching me what species this was, which then prompted me to do a little research of my own to learn more.
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