{"id":6330,"date":"2025-07-31T17:01:48","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T17:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/?p=6330"},"modified":"2026-07-08T17:05:55","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T17:05:55","slug":"2025-07-ant-mimicry-of-cardiacephala-en","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/posts\/2025-07-ant-mimicry-of-cardiacephala-en\/","title":{"rendered":"Dancing on stilts: The ant mimicry and nuptial gifts of Cardiacephala"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The genus <em>Cardiacephala<\/em> belongs to the fascinating world of Neotropical stilt-legged flies (family <em>Micropezidae<\/em>). True to their name, these insects feature extraordinarily long, thread-like legs, which they frequently wave in the air to mimic the erratic, high-strung movements of tropical ants. However, their true spectacle lies in their courtship. When a male approaches a female, he performs an elaborate ritual: swaying his body dynamically from side to side, dipping his abdomen to touch a leaf, and flashing the brilliant, iridescent colors on his tail end to win her over. If successful, he mounts the female and immediately offers a liquid droplet directly to her proboscis\u2014a nutritious nuptial gift to keep her occupied before and during mating. I was fortunate enough to spot this charming stilt-legged fly during two consecutive summer visits to the La Perla protected forest in Ecuador&#8217;s Santo Domingo province, once in 2024 and again in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The genus Cardiacephala belongs to the fascinating world of Neotropical stilt-legged flies (family Micropezidae). True to their name, these insects [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6331,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[488,466],"tags":[],"countries":[74,73],"order-category":[44,60,458],"class_list":["post-6330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-saprophages","category-scavengers","countries-ecuador","countries-south-america","order-category-insects-flies","order-category-insects","order-category-insects-flies-stilt-legged-flies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6330"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6337,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6330\/revisions\/6337"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6330"},{"taxonomy":"countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/countries?post=6330"},{"taxonomy":"order-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/order-category?post=6330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}