Video: The Weirdest Insect I’ve Ever Filmed! BAT FLY

For immediate release ‐ August 29, 2023

Contact: Jon Pishney, 919.707.8083. Images available upon request

From the Head of the Museum’s Evolutionary Biology & Behavior Research Lab, Adrian Smith:

Wow, bat flies are bizarre creatures! I went out to find one of these extraordinary ectoparasitic insects with my museum colleague, Lisa Gatens, as she was trapping and banding bats in the North Carolina’s Coastal Plain. The bat fly in this video was collected off of a southeastern myotis (Myotis austroriparius) bat and is likely the bat fly species Basilia boardmani within the Nycteribiidae family of flies.


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