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I was in the kitchen late one night when something caught my eye. An insect of some sort quickly scuttled across the floor and hid in the darkness under a cupboard. From the brief look I got, I suspected that it was an odd looking hemipteran.

What was it?

As I moved closer I saw it was rather drab and it retreated further, looking a little sinister.

Closer still, I got a proper look at its body and saw that it had really reduced wings and some vicious mouthparts.

Suddenly I starting thinking of sheep keds, Melophagus ovinus, the wingless blood sucking flies that are parasites of sheep. I decided that I didn’t really want to poke it with my fingers, so got a container, my copy of Chinery and a camera.

After flicking through the Diptera I found the section on the Hippoboscidae, the so called flat-flies. Looks like this particular one was, Crataerina hirundinis, a parasite of  martins and swallows. Although not confirmed, it made sense, as I think we have house martins, Delichon urbica, in the loft.

Hippoboscidae: Craeterina hirundinis

The Hippoboscidae are unusual because many have reduced wings and the females give birth to fully grown larvae rather than lay eggs.

I found a few more in the kitchen (now removed) but am uncertain how they got there. Even though I think they wouldn’t bite me, I feel uneasy walking around with bare feet!