Cucumber plant visitor

rajmahendra Mon Oct 17, 2016 4:37 am

This little one is use to be on my Cucumber plant! any idea what is this and is it a good one or pest ?
It may help in pollination ? I see some Dragon flow also sits on the cucumber plan.

**sanderson** Mon Oct 17, 2016 8:59 am

Can you contact the Agriculture Department for help? Some of the flies found in India will be different from other continents.

BeetlesPerSqFt Mon Oct 17, 2016 9:34 am

The fly probably belongs to the group known as the long-legged flies. I have seen similar ones that are probably different species than you show, but in the same group. Here is an American one that looks similar:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/394598/bgpage

A book I have, Field Guide to Insects of North America by Eric R Eaton & Kevin Kaufman, gives a general description of the group as a whole (meaning it applies outside of North America, too), saying "The flies are predators, especially on mites, aphids, and smaller flies." So it is a good bug, even though it does not pollinate.

rajmahendra Tue Oct 18, 2016 5:09 am

got the detail of for this flies...

http://www.orkin.com/flies/bottle-flies/

Look like i no need to do hand pollination

**Scorpio Rising** Tue Oct 18, 2016 7:29 pm

Raj, your fly looks different than the one we call Bottle Fly. Bottle Flies are also known as garbage flies. They eat dead things, garbage, rotting stuff, it is yuck. They do not pollinate anything. And they spread disease because of their death eating habit.

Your fly might be OK. It looks skinnier in the thorax. Some flies are good pollinators. Trying to figure this out...would help to have a local resource.

Keep ya posted!

**Scorpio Rising** Tue Oct 18, 2016 7:31 pm

BeetlesPerSqFt wrote:The fly probably belongs to the group known as the long-legged flies. I have seen similar ones that are probably different species than you show, but in the same group. Here is an American one that looks similar:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/394598/bgpage

A book I have, Field Guide to Insects of North America by Eric R Eaton & Kevin Kaufman, gives a general description of the group as a whole (meaning it applies outside of North America, too), saying "The flies are predators, especially on mites, aphids, and smaller flies." So it is a good bug, even though it does not pollinate.

Yes. This looks like a very similar type to me as well...no pollinating here!

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