Ringia: a fly with a scary mechanism on its face (8 photos)

Not all flies are equally harmful. What can I say, most of them don't bark, don't bite, pollinate flowers, these insects are all good. But, despite all the efforts of more than a hundred families of dipterans, bees have a monopoly on the pollinator market. But there's a problem: bees are dying out.





With such a proboscis, and a sip of nectar. Ah, you already...

And if their numbers drop to a critical level, almost half of the planet's angiosperms will lose the ability to reproduce normally. And the task of saving ecosystems will fall on the fragile backs of flies from the genus Ringia, which are included in the list of a few potential bee substitutes.

Ringia are about 30 species of flies from the hoverfly family that live in the Northern Hemisphere. The main distinguishing feature of the Ringia is a huge proboscis, comparable in size to the length of its body - from 4 to 12 millimeters. It is thanks to the proboscis that Ringia can compete with bees on equal terms.



Here it is, a weapon of resistance to the bee monopoly!





Nature can be ironic: most hoverflies carefully pretend to be wasps and bees so they don't get eaten. But the ringias don't give a damn about camouflage.

Most hoverflies have short, flared proboscises, which are convenient for slurping up spilled tea, jam, liquid waste, and juice from cut oranges. Some of them have adapted to consume nectar or pollen from flowers with a short corolla, but only ringias with their huge squelches are able to taste nectar from any flower they want. And, by the way, pollinate them. All that remains is to find out: how do they fly with such huge things?



One moment – ​​and the proboscis doesn’t get in the way at all!

No way. They are not hummingbirds, to spoil their aerodynamics. Our heroes have special, foldable proboscis. Before takeoff, the ringia hides its proboscis in the overgrown rostrum, the base of the mouth apparatus. Like other insects, the mouth apparatus of the ringia is not a single complex system, but several pairs of limbs, each of which performs its own functions. And, of course, these limbs are equipped with joints. The fly only has to redesign them so that the huge proboscis can conveniently fold into a cover. True, this is just in words - there are only a few hundred species of insects in the world that use the same system.



Going to the target, over...

But will the advanced proboscis help the ringias replace the bees if their ecological niche becomes vacant? Unfortunately, no. After all, the ringias are also going through hard times. At the beginning of the 20th century, their numbers dropped sharply several times. And people are to blame for this.



A fly sits on a flower. And blames people for everything.

But this time, it's not possible to scold us for oppressing another genus. The number of insects has sharply decreased due to the mass introduction of treatment facilities and humanity's rejection of horses in favor of cars. And we have gradually driven the cattle into indoor factories. The reserves of easily accessible manure have sharply decreased, and without them, these flies cannot maintain high numbers.



Remember this face. This is our little friend-pie!

But they need so little to reproduce! Having seen the deposits of former food, the ringia lays eggs directly on it or on the underside of a leaf hanging over the brown gold. In 5-6 days, the eggs hatch into ever-hungry larvae, and in another 2 weeks they turn into full-fledged adults. Fast and convenient. But they will never be able to reach the numbers that would allow the flies to compensate for the absence of bees.



For aesthetic reasons, we will not show you the ringia larvae. But we can show how the flies do not care about gravity!

But this is something. It is thanks to such little workers that even the complete disappearance of bees and bumblebees will most likely not lead to a complete collapse of ecosystems!