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I've seen the following insect in Austria at the border to Bavaria (high resolution). It was quite small. I would guess not longer than 1cm:

enter image description here

Could somebody identify it?

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  • $\begingroup$ Type of robber fly perhaps? $\endgroup$
    – CKM
    Jul 8, 2017 at 0:05
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    $\begingroup$ Not a robber fly; I think Empididae; doing a search on diptera.info/infusions/aw_forum_panel/search.php for that family name might suggest a deeper identification $\endgroup$
    – user32396
    Jul 8, 2017 at 0:31
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    $\begingroup$ @GerardoFurtado Thank you :-) I like taking close-ups and this one was a lucky one. I almost touched the insect with my camera lens but it didn't move. A really professional photo model; I wish more insects were like this ;-) And usually I put those photographs under CC0 on Wikipedia Commons to make it easy to use them. $\endgroup$ Jul 8, 2017 at 6:34
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    $\begingroup$ yes, definitely Empididae with that long "snout". (but i can't be more precise than that.) i've also notices that a lot of them seem to be nice and slow! $\endgroup$
    – picapica
    Jul 8, 2017 at 15:15

1 Answer 1

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Could somebody identify it?

Sure, I'd be glad to help you with that!

The fly in question is indeed a member of the Empididae family, and of the genus Empis. I couldn't quite decide on the species, but it's either Tessellata or Opaca (with me leaning more towards Tessellata). This fly (genus) is commonly referred to as a "Dance Fly".


Empis Tessellata

Empis Tessellata


Empis Opaca

Empis Opaca

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