Photograph by Richard Hughes.
Photography contest, Honorable Mention.
Tabanus subsimilis – striped horsefly, likely a male who landed there to drink juices from the surrounding berries, Jackson, Tennessee. For more images of bug eyes see http://www.metro.co.uk/news/picture[…]-close-ups/1
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It could just as well be the female: I thought both the male and female drink blood.
Not my favorite organism. When I was a kid in Pennsylvania, once I was alone in a rural swimming pool (a partially-enclosed small pond in the woods at a summer camp) and one of these started hunting me. I had to swim to the deep water and go under and hold my breath to get it to go away. Gives you some idea what prey experiences.
Yeah; persistent, nasty little buggers.
Its cousin shows up as Tabanus atratusin old folk songs.
I’m from Pennsylvania as well and the horse flies are terrible. I’ve never seen up close though. From that photo, it sort of looks like a moth.
You might be interested in checking out my new skeptically themed website/podcast, The Inconvenient Truth.
Update