{"id":36507,"date":"2024-04-10T06:00:21","date_gmt":"2024-04-10T10:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/?p=36507"},"modified":"2024-03-30T03:32:39","modified_gmt":"2024-03-30T07:32:39","slug":"just-once-part-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2024\/04\/just-once-part-15\/","title":{"rendered":"Just once, part 15"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/LostInYourEyes.jpg\" alt=\"pair of mating  Orthonevra nitida on small flower buds\" width=\"730\" height=\"607\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12178\" \/><br clear=\"all\"\/>These two are small, so it&#8217;s no surprise that I only have one example of images of them, though I think I might have seen another last year when I didn&#8217;t have the camera in hand. This is a type of <em>Syrphidae<\/em>, or the hover fly family, known only as <em>Orthonevra nitida<\/em>, and the eye pattern is apparently specific to the eastern half of the continent.<\/p>\n<p><em>Why<\/em> do the eyes look like this? I have found no explanation, and even idle uneducated speculation (well, my own, anyway,) hasn&#8217;t provided a clue. Given the other markings and even the wing veins, I&#8217;d be inclined to say it was camouflage, but likely not from blending in, since hover flies routinely alight on flowers that look nothing at all like this. However, it&#8217;s possible that they resemble something like caterpillar feces and thus avoid predation through germophobia. Then again, if you refer to <a href=\"https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/1447998\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">this image<\/a>, it&#8217;s easy to believe they do it on purpose just to freak out the stoned predators.<\/p>\n<p>And while the short depth-of-field makes it far less obvious, this is actually a mating pair, though which one is facing us, I can&#8217;t say. But notice that one simple eye, right in the middle, staring right into our souls&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>These two are small, so it&#8217;s no surprise that I only have one example of images of them, though I think I might have seen another last year when I didn&#8217;t have the camera in hand. This is a type of Syrphidae, or the hover fly family, known only as Orthonevra nitida, and the eye [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[50,7628,7627,1832,5862,7631],"class_list":["post-36507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","category-photo","tag-camouflage","tag-eye-coloration","tag-hover-fly","tag-orthonevra-nitida","tag-syrphidae","tag-your-soul-anyway-im-an-atheist-and-dont-have-one-of-course"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36507\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}