Thursday 5 July 2012

World's Tiniest Fly May Decapitate Ants, Live in Their Heads


A new fly discovered in Thailand is the world's smallest. It is five times smaller than a fruit fly and tinier than a grain of salt (0.4 millimeters) in length — half the size of the smallest "no see-ums." It probably also feeds on tiny ants, likely decapitating them and using their head casings as its home.

"It's so small you can barely see it with the naked eye on a microscope slide. It's smaller than a flake of pepper," said Brian Brown, of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, who identified the fly as a new species. "The housefly looks like a Godzilla fly beside it."

The tiny finding is detailed in the July 2012 issue of the journal Annals of the Entomological Society of America.

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