First time I found an Argiope female next to her egg sac in the field. She must have laid it recently because they are known to stay with the egg sac for ~ one day. Egg sac guarding against parasites? The web around it might also help.

Ever wondered if harvestmen care for their young? Well you're in luck! Using citizen science data from iNaturalist, a new study on Gonyleptoidea has revealed both maternal & paternal care, more than doubling the records of this behaviour! 🧪🌍👇
doi.org/10.1093/zool...

A close look at a Grass Fly (Meromyza sp.)
​Brilliant iridescent green eyes, swollen hind legs, and the detailed ocellar triangle on top of its head. These tiny stem-boring flies are easy to miss, but incredible under a macro lens!
@dipteristsforum.bsky.social @dipterists.bsky.social

Sepsis thoracica male dung flies repeatedly twisted the female's wings forward with their front legs as if trying to stimulate her.

#Diptera #Courtship

Sepsis barbata male dung flies repeatedly twisted the female’s wings forward with their front legs as if trying to stimulate her.

#Diptera #Courtship

Sepsis barbata male dung flies use their front legs to rhythmically pinch the female wings and rub the "beards" on their femur against her thorax. The movements seem to have no function other than stimulating the female.

#Diptera #Courtship

A Peacock Fly (Callopistromyia sp.) showing off the beautiful display on those wings! They strut around waving their wings and doing a little wiggle, an amazing behavior right in your own backyard.

#Invert #Diptera #bugsky 🌿 #entomology

The front legs of Sepsis flies (Diptera: Sepsidae) are stimulation devices BehProc

My first paper. The front legs of Sepsis flies are not devices to facilitate raping the female. They function to stimulate the female’s wing sense organs and make love.

Read “A Bridge between Animal Psychology and Sexual Selection: Possible Effects of Habituation and Neural Adaptation on Mate Choice Signals,” by William G. Eberhard, new from The Quarterly Review of Biology. ow.ly/cmao50QHTr9

William Eberhard: "The largest collection of detailed descriptions of male and female genital copulation behaviour ever assembled, suggests that rapid divergence in male genital morphology is driven by sexual selection to court females during copulation.":

doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...