Found the fly sitting on the resort's elephant !!! Whacked it , stunned it , removed it from the poor pachyderm's skin and lo!!! what a proboscis !!! This fly was was a blood sucker!!! I had seen this fly earlier on one of the documentaries on T.V. but had never seen one live and up-close till date. I learnt that this fly regularly visits elephants and other large mammals especially large herbivores and drinks blood. This fly also has another habit... it lays eggs in holes of ground nesting insects like bees. but the first one to emerge out are the fly larvae !!! Thus making this fly a REALLY WICKED insect.To keep the bees attacking the fly while raiding the nest, the fly mimics the colour patterns of the bee. The amazing part is that the fly does not enter the nest, instead it hovers over the entrance and literally SHOOTS the eggs into the hole !!! Now I know the usefulness of those BIG EYES !!!
But what really takes the cake is the proboscis !!! Such a saber like mouth part IS required if you have to drink blood through the hide of an ELEPHANT !!!
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