A fabulously early robber for Florida. Up in March. Gets the rest of the south's hopes up. This is a Laphria that is close to Laphria macquarti which was almost described by Bromley. I don't know how you separate it from macquarti unless the entire Florida population was separate. Apparently Bromley died before he could get the description finished. Note the yellow mystax and the characteristic (for this species pair) yellow hair on outer mid-tibia only. Wonderful shot from Eric.

These are not quite as large as the above species (or the two giants lata and grossa which may be forms of the same species -- see that page). This is the true Laphria macquarti and note the mid-tibial line of yellow hair which distinguishes it from this angle. Also a female. Note the dark hair lateral to the eyes. The above Florida species has the same line of yellow.

The mid-tibial hair is also visible here and you can see the hairs in front of the halteres are dark and that the mystax and beard are black in the lower portion. Also note that the prominent hair lateral to the eyes is black in the females of this species and yellow in the lata/grossa pair.

An impressive male and the only one I have ever photographed with some orange in the abdominal hair. All other characters are equivalent to macquarti and there is no evidence this is something different. There are some western Laphria with orange on the abdomen. Note the male yellow hair lateral to the eyes here as well.

Side view of another female from Pope county. Again notice the sexual difference in the hair lateral to the eyes is black in the female and yellow in the grand males.

The magnificent male in frontal view. They seem to love these beetles in the scarab family. Note the much more prominent yellow on the forelegs which the female does not have and the great suborbital yellow tufts.

The first macquarti I likely ever shot. At the time I had no idea what it was. In fact, this picture was taken the year before I started first collecting robber flies. This is another large female.

And a female with another robber that I initially thought was a Diogmites platyperus but then decided must be Prolepsis tristus. Finally, with other eyes it turned out to be a Ceraturgus. Rare robbers. Meaning this Laphria hunted one down that I had not found. (We subsequently documented Ceraturgus elizabethae in Bell Slough. See Ceraturgus species page.) Jeesh. Either way, nice take down.

Another angle on this remarkable predator-prey pairing. L. macquarti consistently seem to take larger prey than the more massive Laphria grossa/lata combo.

A Laphria macquarti from Texas. Unless there is an undefined species there. Remember Bullington has quite a few large Laphria species he found while doing his dissertation that have not been described. Compare with the above male. Note how this is much darker in the beard and mystax than our males. And our males have an impressive amount of yellow on the foretibia. These have almost none. And this has the black facial hair lateral to the orbits of our females. Odd.