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Hello to all!
This nice brown fly was to be found on the edge of the Pululahua-crater in the neighbourhood of Quito. Size about 12-15mm. Who knows more?

7.8.2009, Ecuador, Prov. Pichincha, Pululahua-crater, about 2900m asl

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Stop ... I'm drooling all over my keyboard! :D No, no - go on - more!! ;)

Other than it looks like subfamily Tachininae (a bold-enough guess for me), I can't say more but I will pass these photos on to Jim in the hope that he might get closer :)

I visited Ecuador twice and went to places like Banos, Misahualli, Rio Topo etc but don't remember seeing such wonderful flies. What habits do they have? Did they come to any particular flowers or were they always on foliage?

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Hi Chris!
Except the one from Laguna Quilotoa none of them was on flowers but only on green plant parts or the ground itself. I can't tell you, of course, which plants, because simply I don't know them. In general, I found most in altitudes of more than 1800m (I remember one near Mindo, 1300m, but disappearing to fast, whereas in Misahuallí, where I found really a lot of different arthropods in short time, there was not a single Tachinid amongst them. And there was no day at all, when I found more than one. So I think, except for open eyes of course (what I'm totally convinced you have), it's more a statistical matter whether you find some or not.

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Interesting ... it does seem to be a pattern that the large, dramatic tachinids come from more montane regions. My samples from French Guiana have had no large, bristly tachinids and, as you say, when I have been to the lowland neotropics I have found it very hard to see tachinids - I am sure they are there but they are not making themselves visible at ground level. Perhaps they inhabit to upper forest canopy or the darker parts of the rainforest but they don't have the same habits as European species.