E. E. Wilson Wildlife Area. The tiny fly near the bee, on Bellis perennis.
Photograph by Duncan Robertson. On grass blade next to muddy puddle in fynbos. Last 2 photos show habitat.
Photographer: Duncan Robertson. Last photo shows habitat: Freshwater system above highwater mark on the coast, with aquatic vegetation and some stream flow.
Attracted to blacklight in backyard of relatively urban neighborhood.
Very similar in size to Drosophila. Resembles some picture-winged and signal flies, but I didn't notice it moving its wings at all.
Insecto encontrado en campos de lupinus mutabilis chocho
Identificación barcoding, gen COI (Francia, 2018)
Seen at third sheet described below
Set up three sheets near open trail at Deering Estate North from around 22:00-00:30
Some wind, no moon. Temps in the mid 70's.
This area was evidently burned not too long ago and the dominant grass species is only just starting to come back (normally around 6 feet tall if I remember right, and tonight it was only around 2 feet tall).
1: Edge of open salt marsh habitat, lit by bioquip blacklight from 22:00-00:30
All observations from this sheet: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?d1=2022-03-29&d2=2022-03-30&nelat=25.62846541190498&nelng=-80.29840778848276&place_id=any&project_id=blacklighting-florida&swlat=25.627800370058946&swlng=-80.30095991036043&user_id=joemdo
2: Similar location to first sheet, lit by 1 DJ blacklight (more info on this light below) from 22:30-00:30
All observations from this sheet: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?d1=2022-03-29&d2=2022-03-30&nelat=25.628014884468968&nelng=-80.29920396374503&place_id=any&project_id=blacklighting-florida&swlat=25.627349840114316&swlng=-80.30004718320409&user_id=joemdo
3: Edge of mangrove habitat facing east/west trail, lit by 1 DJ blacklight from 22:40-00:15
All observations from this sheet: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?d1=2022-03-29&d2=2022-03-30&nelat=25.62789010424732&nelng=-80.298437419117&place_id=any&project_id=blacklighting-florida&swlat=25.627225059197862&swlng=-80.29928063857605&user_id=joemdo
All blacklighting observations from this area tonight: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?d1=2022-03-29&d2=2022-03-30&nelat=25.63778782934046&nelng=-80.24006098310949&place_id=any&swlat=25.61650631479218&swlng=-80.3421458582163&user_id=joemdo
Here's a video showing the DJ blacklights in action at the Pinecrest campground (Big Cypress) from Summer 2019: https://youtu.be/tavmTa7WoPk
Info about the cheapy DJ blacklights used on the second and third sheet, great for getting started with blacklighting: https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/damontighe/11836-diy-moth-light
Blacklighting project for Florida on iNaturalist: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/blacklighting-florida