Mormotomyia hirsuta returns to haunt our dreams:
Scientists have rediscovered a bizarre insect in Kenya, collecting the first Terrible Hairy Fly specimen since 1948.
Since then, at least half a dozen expeditions have visited its only known habitat - a rock cleft in an area east of Nairobi - in search of the fly.
Two insect specialists recently spotted the 1cm-long insect, known as Mormotomyia hirsuta, living on the 20m-high rock.
They point out that it looks more like a spider with hairy legs.
The fly was found by Dr Robert Copeland and Dr Ashley Kirk-Spriggs during an expedition led by the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE).
"The rediscovery of the species, which has been collected on only two occasions before, in 1933 and 1948, has caused excitement in insect museums world-wide," the team members said in a statement.
Unable to fly and partial to breeding in bat faeces, the fly is thought to live only in the dank, bat-filled cleft of the isolated rock in Kenya's Ukazi Hills.
Partial to breeding in bat faeces? And these insect specialists went looking for them? Ha! You know what that makes them?
Completely bonkers!
It's certainly an exciting time to be a dipterologist, coming so soon after the rediscovery of Thyreophora cynophila, a member of the cheese and bone-skipper family of flies long thought to be extinct. Thyreophora, which lives on dead animals in advanced stages of decay, was found during the course of experiments in Spain to help forensics experts determine how long corpses have been decomposing.
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