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The weblog below is for naturalists to use to report interesting sightings, ask questions, report on field meetings and generally post pictures and any information or questions generally relevant in some way to the wildlife and geology of Essex. You will need to register and be logged-on to post to the forum, and you need to upload pictures first, for use in posts. Find out more

Thu 6th September 2012 16:13 by Peter Pearson Eureka Thanks to iSpot and David Noton, of the Natural History Museum, the mystery of the black fly and Garden Spiders, is to the best of my knowledge solved. The fly is a Free-booter Fly, Desmometopa m-nigra, given the name free-booter because of its habit of taking the body fluids of bees which have fallen prey to spiders. I have just watched 5 sitting on leaves near a web where a bee was being sedated and wrapped. link

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