Natural Science Forum / Biology / Entomology / July 2008

...in my closet yesterday. I have never seen anything like it. At
first I thought it was a regular fly, but when I waved my hand in the
air to make it fly away - it was sitting on some clothes in my closet
- it didn't fly, but just crawled on. I then thought that it was the
heat or whatever, maybe just a lazy fly, but then I realized that it
looked a bit odd.

And now .. sorry for what you are about to read. I presume that you
are insect lovers and believe that they have every right to be here,
as the rest of us. Well, so do I actually, but I just don't like
having them near me or in my closet, on my clothes .. so I took a
newspaper and whacked the fly. It fell onto the floor. And crawled on.
I whacked it again, harder this time. He crawled on.

I now hit it a bit frantically (I was pretty psyched at this point -
I'm the kind of person who screams when there's a spider, so this was
getting a bit too scary for me). No matter how hard, I hit it, it just
kept going. I now placed the paper and PRESSED my hand real hard on
where the fly was. Lifting the paper, just to see it keep crawling. I
did it again, same result. I then stood on the paper, twisting my
heel. Now it finally stopped. Or sort of, it was still twitching a
bit. I managed to scoop it onto a piece of paper and into a glass, so
I could show it to my husband.

Several hours later he returned home and I showed him the bug. And
believe it or not, when he took it from the glass and put it on a
piece of paper - IT WASN'T DEAD YET. One tough bugger.

My husband had never seen something like it before. Me neither. I
photographed it and I have uploaded the picture and I hope that
somebody out there can help us identify this very tough bug.

A few facts: We live in Denmark, and it's high summer here, sporting
temperatures around 25 degrees Celcius. We live on the 4th floor in
central Copenhagen (only a few trees in our yard). The windows have
been open for a few days because of the weather.

The fly (or what it is) had small wings. It was around 10-13 mm long.
It moved more like a spider than a fly - in short bursts of movement.

See the pictures of the bug here:
http://www.finurlig.dk/pics/bug/IMG_2607.JPG
http://www.finurlig.dk/pics/bug/IMG_2608.JPG
http://www.finurlig.dk/pics/bug/IMG_2609.JPG
http://www.finurlig.dk/pics/bug/IMG_2611.JPG

Please bear in mind that I have been standing on the fly at this
point. It might have been less flat before it met me.

I hope someone can help me or maybe tell me who to contact. I was
thinking about an entomology department on a university.

(Please excuse me for any language mistakes. English is not my mother
tongue.)

Best Regards, Charlotte