A new taxon on a winter window

It's hard to make iNat observations here in Idaho with two feet of snow on the ground. Yesterday, however, I did manage to get a couple of poor photos of birds (Bohemian Waxwings and a Varied Thrush) that were iNat firsts for me. But I was most excited about a 3 mm insect that I found crawling around on the inside of the window through which I photographed the birds.

It was a dark-winged fungus gnat (Diptera: Sciaridae), a new taxon for me. Although they are quite common, they are rarely noticed and difficult to identify, even to genus. They have a world-wide distribution with 1700 known species and many more undiscovered and unidentified.

My little gnat probably hatched from an egg deposited in one of our flower pots; spent its larval days beneath the surface eating soil fungi and organic debris; remained in the soil to pupate; and recently emerged to breed - only to be caught by me on the window pane.

Posted on 11 de janeiro de 2017, 06:54 PM by swells