A visit (or two) from a tiger bee fly

A tiger bee fly (Xenox tigrinus) came to visit me just outside my office on Tuesday (thanks to the fantastic resource What’s That Bug? for the identification). She was definitely striking, but a little imposing-looking, and though I couldn’t see any fly-typical bladelike mouth parts, I kept my distance until I knew what she was.

(I don’t like big biting flies. Bees and wasps leave you alone if you leave them alone. Big biting flies slice you open to eat, so you can just be minding your own business and get it, and it hurts.)

After I knew she ate nectar and not blood, I went outside to look again, and was hoping to get a photo. She was where I left her, but I startled her when I walked up, and she landed right on my right leg! Unfortunately, my camera was in that pocket (doh! get it out before you go out), and I couldn’t retrieve it carefully enough to avoid her flying away.

Still, it was cool. I considered blogging about the encounter anyway, but decided it would be lame without a photo, so I didn’t.

Well, she came back today and posed for me! She’s about an inch long, and a beautiful blue-black that the photo doesn’t capture well:

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