The "terrible hairy fly" rediscovered in Kenya

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Our friend Ryan brings our attention to this unusually-headlined article (this one, especially, sounds like a bad low-budget film, and one that I'd gladly watch). The article's short, so I won't let my commentary get in the way of your curiosity:

Scientists in Kenya have located one of the world's rarest and oddest-looking flies after a long hunt for an insect dubbed the "terrible hairy fly," experts said on Wednesday.

Scientists first stumbled across the yellow-haired fly in 1933 and then again in 1948. Since then, at least half a dozen expeditions have visited a site between the towns of Thika and Garissa to find it again.

At about one centimeter long and so far found on a single 20-meter high rock, the Mormotomyia hirsuta looks more like a spider with its hairy legs, scientists said.

Unable to fly and partial to breeding in bat feces, the fly is thought to live only in the dank, bat-filled cleft of an isolated rock in the Ukazi Hills. It also has non-functional wings that resemble miniature belt-straps, and tiny eyes.

More details - and a photo - here.


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This page contains a single entry by Richard published on December 20, 2010 2:25 PM.

Bush hid the facts was the previous entry in this blog.

The first solstice/lunar eclipse overlap in 372 years... tonight! is the next entry in this blog.