These two were only 20cm apart at one stage. One appeared slightly smaller and when it saw the larger one, it jumped away in the opposite direction.

There would have been in excess of 20 along a 10m section of track.

Did you know that I know nothing about flies? Alas, it is true. They elude me. And this is suuuuuch a great picture to ID from too. -_-
This looks like some calliphorids that I've seen, but I really don't know enough to rule out other similar things. So let's start from the top. There's a nice phylogenetic tree at the Wikipedia page that I can use to get an idea of what flies are like. The most basal flies are grouped together in a paraphyletic assemblage known as Nematocera (although there is some disagreement here with many references listing them as monophyletic). They're all rather long-legged flies with thin segmented antennae. They include things like crane flies, mosquitoes, and midges. So that's not what we have here.

So that leaves the 'more advanced' members of the clade Brachycera. Going by the cladogram, the first split is between Tabanomorpha and Muscomorpha. The former contains the superfamilies Stratiomyiomorpha, Xylophagomorpha, and Tabanomorpha. Going by ALA, Stratiomyiomorpha contains Stratiomyidae and the monotypic (at least in Australia) family Xylomyidae. They both consist of rather elongate flies that are not what this is. Xylophagomorpha contains only Xylophagidae, which in turn contains only several species of Exeretonevra, which are rather interesting but not what I have:

Tabanomorpha contains three families according to ALA, but other sources indicate a couple of others are now lumped in there where ALA has them separate. Pelecorhynchidae contains only Pelecorhynchus which essentially looks like a march fly with coloured and/or patterned wings. Athericidae contains some odd little flies that look like their wings are too big for their bodies some of the time: And Tabanidae of course contains the hated march flies! I can't recall ever seeing a metallic blue tabanid and a look through images on ALA and iNat does not show me anything similar, so I think I am happy ruling it out.

Listed by some as under Tabanomorpha are the families Austroleptidae and Rhagionidae. The former contains only Austroleptis, which are odd little flies with spots on their wings. Rhagionidae are small elongate flies with little bodies and large wings and eyes, quite different to what I have.

So Muscomorpha at least is what I have. Going by the tree, the first branch off is Nemestrinoidea, containing Acroceridae and Nemestrinidae. The former are very distinctive flies with tiny heads. Nemestrinids are also rather distinctive 'pointy' flies that look quite like tabanids, and I don't know of any metallic species.

Next down the rung is Asiloidea, containing a number of families. Apioceridae contains only Apiocera, which are elongate patterned flies. Apsilocephalidae are small elongate flies that look nothing like this. Asilidae - well, we all know robber flies! There are many forms and colours but all too elongate for this. Bombyliidae are perhaps even more varied, but they all seem to hold their wings out widely, and the few that don't look very different to this. So I'm happy excluding them. Mydidae once more are far too elongate. Scenopinidae are also too elongate and fold their wings weirdly. And lastly Therevidae are also too elongate, and I cannot find any metallic ones.

Next, Empidoidea. Dolichopodidae are mostly rather metallic but are small, elongate flies with wings held wide. Empididae are elongate, dark flies with rather long legs. Hybotidae are quite small and rather elongate. And finally Ragadidae are pretty much the same.

So we have something in Cyclorrhapha at least. ALA lists Cyclorrhapha weirdly, directly under Diptera, but we'll ignore that. Next comes a paraphyletic group previously called Aschiza. We'll just go by what the ALA says here because the rest is somewhat confusing. ALA includes Phoroidea and Syrphoidea. We'll start with the former. First up, the wonderfully named Ironic Flies (Ironomyiidae). They are small and the wrong shape. Into the bin! Lonchopteridae are also small and the wrong shape, so they too are out. Phoridae are teensy little flies with the general vibe of a drosophilid. And of course Platypezidae are more of the same. All out!

Syrphoidea then - it contains two families, Pipunculidae and of course Syrphidae. Pipunculidae are small flies with large heads and elongate wings, very unlike what I have. On to Syrphidae, and now we see our first flies that are actually somewhat similar. A quick browse through photos does indeed bring up similar flies, especially Austalis. I might have to do some more digging. So within Syrphidae it seems only Eristaliinae contain metallic blue species, and within that only the Eristalini (although some Merodontini are a little close, but darker). Going further, only Eristalina, and within that only Austalis and Axona are metallic. However the single Axona species has darkened wings so that is out. Austalis has several metallic species but they are all either the wrong colour, or have patterns on the thorax that are not seen in mine.

So, Schizophora it is, which is divided into Calyptratae and Acalyptratae. ALA for some reason lists Conopidae separately whereas most sites list it under Acalyptratae. They are definitely the wrong shape though, being very elongate, so either way it doesn't really matter. There are... a lot of acalyptrates. A very large amount. A quick glance over gives nothing really that looks similar, so I won't make too many notes here. I'll write them as I rule them out but I won't add many more notes. Many are drosophilid sort of shapes and most seem quite small. Ruled out: Carnoidea: Australimyzidae, Canacidae, Chloropidae, Milichiidae; Ephydroidea: Braulidae, Cryptochetidae, Curtonotidae, Drosophilidae, Ephydridae; Lauxanioidea: Chamaemyiidae, Lauxaniidae; Nerioidea: Cypselosomatidae, Micropezidae, Neriidae; Opomyzoidea: Agromyzidae, Anthomyzidae, Asteiidae, Clusiidae, Fergusoninidae, Neminidae, Neurochaetidae, Odiniidae, Periscelididae, Teratomyzidae, Xenasteiidae; Sciomyzoidea: Coelopidae, Helosciomyzidae, Sciomyzidae, Sepsidae; Sphaeroceroidea: Chyromyidae, Heteromyzidae, Sphaeroceridae; Tanypezoidea: Psilidae, Strongylophthalmyiidae; Tephritoidea: Lonchaeidae, Piophilidae, Platystomatidae, Pyrgotidae, Tephritidae, Ulidiidae. Phew! A few of the families towards the end of the list have some metallic green members but they are all the wrong shape entirely. Also just wanted to highlight that this is my first time finding out about Bee Lice (Baulidae), and now I really wanna see one they sound cute :P

So! It is Calyptratae at least. This is good. Do you know why this is good? Because there is this great key, and the very first character asks us whether the thorax is metallic! So checking that box, we go from 28 options down to five. Woohoo! Those options do not correspond directly to families though, and so we actually only have three possible families: Muscidae, Calliphoridae, and Tachinidae. So we have ruled out all of Hippoboscoidea (Hippoboscidae, Nycteribiidae, and Streblidae) which are all parasitic species, the latter two on bats. I would love to see a nycteribiid one day but I think I have actually seen a streblid! Also ruled out are Muscoidea: Anthomyiidae, Faniidae, and Oestroidea: Oestridae, Rhiniidae, Rhinophoridae, Sarcophagidae, Ulurumyiidae. The rest of the key is based on rather smaller features and we won't get much further with that. I'm pretty happy as is and I think it will probably be a lot of work for me to try to get any further. I might tag some fly people to see whether they have any hints or a general 'feel' of what it might be.

And by the way, sorry I gave up on the photos! :P

Well this was a bit of an unfortunate end to my gall story. The gall, totally brown and desiccated had been sitting for weeks in a jar in my kitchen. I thought that there was absolutely no chance that the female could be still alive. I decided to look at her corpse, so I cut the gall open (easier said than done with a knife). To my disappointment really, she was still alive and I nicked her with the knife :-(((( There were also another zillion crawlers inside the gall.

As I had failed to keep the first batch of crawlers alive, despite my best leaf gathering, I decided to return them all to the patch of E. obliqua that I had found them in. I scattered the crawlers onto leaves and branches, and I wedged the gall back amongst the trunk, in case the female survived my gash (and my home destruction.

As punishment it is a horrible walks to that site (surely, nearly vertical) and it was freezing and raining.....

These are bad pictures because of the very difficult container I have to deal with.....On April 10 I collected an interesting looking Eucalyptus gall (poorly photographed below) to see if I could find out what was living in it (this was my planned new super-documentation subject). Anyway, the gall was too big for the lens I had, and I was supposedly going to take good photos at home (forgot), stuck it into a jar and then essentially forgot about it. Yesterday (May 13) I did a token look at the jar, then did a double take when I saw tiny (around 1 mm) moving dots in a loose cluster (above).) I attempted photos from outside the container as I didn't want them to escape. I thought they were mites. In the evening they were tightly clustered near the lid of the jar, so I could vaguely get a better dorsal image. I was surprised to find that they weren't mites, but insects. I assume Hemiptera, but I don't know. Anyway, my task now is to try and work out what I need to feed them on and see if I can rear them to something recognisable (and take some better pics). If anyone does know what they are, please let me know.

In retrospect I am kind of glad that I forgot to do the good photo shoot of the actual gall as I probably would have cut it open to observe what was inside.

Thanks to Penelope Mills (via Bowerbird) for telling me that the crawlers were Apiomorpha, possibly munita.

More of the earlier story www.flickr.com/photos/zosterops/33969466608/in/dateposted/