A Wingless Soldier Fly helps to show the wonders of nature
Looking up along a gate post at a female Wingless Soldier Fly laying its eggs
Canon EOS R5 Mk II with a Canon RF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM [ISO 160, 100mm, f/11 and 1/160] with Canon Speedlite EL-5 flash, two shot focus-stacking)
In early June, at Central Tillba, I found this female Wingless Soldier Fly (Boreoides subulatus) with her ovipositor (for laying eggs) buried in a wooden gate post. The photographs are slightly misleading because she is actually facing downwards, I am looking up from the bottom of the gate post to her. She was a lighter colour to the greyish black ones that I am more used to seeing, and this was the first time that I have seen a female laying eggs.
She has her ovipositor, an extension at the end of her body that could look like a sting but is used like a pipe to push her eggs into position. Her abdomen is extra large because she probably has hundreds of eggs in there ready for laying. Her eggs will remain unhatched during the winter because they are the only part of the life cycle that can tolerate winter. They will hatch in the next Autumn. When the eggs hatch, the larvae are not pests and will not damage the wood. That is not the food that they will consume and she is laying her eggs up there because she has been up high making it easier for a male to find her.
A side view of the female Wingless Soldier Fly laying its eggs
Canon EOS R5 Mk II with a Canon RF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM [ISO 160, 100mm, f/11 and 1/160] with Canon Speedlite EL-5 flash)
After hatching, the larvae will make their way down to the leaf litter, and even compost heaps in gardens. The larvae are great in the garden because they help break down the dead organic matter on the ground. They help in another way because they change the smell of the decaying leaf matter, and dry it out, meaning it is less attractive to the larvae of blow flies and other bothersome flies. The young will moult about six times before they reach adulthood.
I find it amazing that although we look on these creatures as simple, they have a complex life cycle that involves them moving from where they are born, to grow up, and then leave that area to search out a mate high above again. All this, without any training from an older relative. Somehow, their life directions are contained within their brain, directing them from the moment they are born. And I was fortunate enough to witness a part of that life cycle right in front of me. This is the type of thing that makes my day. I have read about ovipositors being used but there it was happening, right in front of me, and I could capture it with my camera. Nature is amazing.
