My first reaction to this fly was a leap backwards; I thought it was a wasp. Nope - it's a Mydas Fly. I still didn't pick it up!

It looks as though I'll be getting more of them, given what this pair on my Cassia are up to.

I don't think any flies can eat solids; they slurp liquids, so that Mydas Fly on the Spanish Needles flower above must be sipping nectar. That is one popular flower in the world of butterflies and bugs!

This unfortunate Mydas Fly caught my attention when I went out to check my Desmodium, that plant it's hanging on, to see how my Long-tailed skipper butterfly caterpillar was doing. I'm glad the wasp got the Mydas Fly instead of my caterpillar.

That wasp is so small compared to the Mydas fly that it's hard to believe it caught it. I wish I'd seen the beginning of the story, but what you see is what I found, so I can't say for sure how the wasp got the fly for supper.

This next big buggie was on the wrong side of the patio screen.

I stuck a cup over him, after getting pictures, of course, slipped a paper between the cup and the screen, and tossed it bug and all out the door. That's a very effective method of catching a bug by the way. Clear containers work best, particularly if it might be a biting bug - you know where it is in relation to your fingers!

Speaking of fingers, here are mine, just to show you how very large the Mydas Flies are.

There hundreds of species of Mydas Flies. When I finish getting at least a general name for all of the other plants and creatures that have caught my attention, I'll come back to which species this one is, but for the time being, I'm quite content to call it a Mydas Fly.