{"id":6818,"date":"2026-06-04T19:20:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T19:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/?p=6818"},"modified":"2026-07-21T17:49:48","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T17:49:48","slug":"2026-06-strange-gear-of-suillia-bicolor-en","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/posts\/2026-06-strange-gear-of-suillia-bicolor-en\/","title":{"rendered":"Spiky wings and mating hooks: The strange gear of Suillia bicolor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meet <em>Suillia bicolor<\/em>, a tiny, cold-tolerant fly belonging to the spiked-winged flies family (<em>Heleomyzidae<\/em>). Measuring a mere 5 millimeters in length, this little forest dweller is easily recognized by its vibrant orange-brown thorax contrasting beautifully with a darker brown abdomen. If you want to find them, you have to follow the fungi; their larvae feed entirely on wild mushrooms and decaying organic matter, meaning the adults spend their lives lingering in shady, damp woodlands where mushrooms thrive. To identify them, entomologists look for a family trademark: a unique row of tiny, stiff spines running along the front edge of their wings. But the males have an even weirder, hidden tool\u2014a miniature &#8220;hook&#8221; on their front feet that they use to tightly clamp onto the female during mating. I spotted this tiny, mushroom-loving specialist resting during an overnight camp on my bicycle tour through Sweden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meet Suillia bicolor, a tiny, cold-tolerant fly belonging to the spiked-winged flies family (Heleomyzidae). Measuring a mere 5 millimeters in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6819,"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":[677,488],"tags":[],"countries":[63,76],"order-category":[44,60,1178],"class_list":["post-6818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mycophages-fungivores","category-saprophages","countries-europe","countries-sweden","order-category-insects-flies","order-category-insects","order-category-insects-flies-spiny-winged-flies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6818","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=6818"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6823,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6818\/revisions\/6823"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6818"},{"taxonomy":"countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/countries?post=6818"},{"taxonomy":"order-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/order-category?post=6818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}