This is a microscopic image of an egg and first instar Diogmites larva. Since the larvae of many robber flies, including Diogmites spp., are apparently poorly known, or at least were at one point, I wondered if I could capture adult robber flies and convince them to oviposit. This was more than easy for Diogmites females. Adults were collected from the USF campus. In the presence of moist sandy loam to sandy soil, females readily oviposited. Unfortunately, I had multiple females and species narrowing probably wouldn't be possible. I think it took 1-2 weeks for the eggs to hatch, maybe more. I've done a lot of reading on these larvae, which was very difficult, but researchers in the past have found these attached to the head bases of beetle grub larvae. I don't know how I'm going to feed first instar larvar, though. My goal is to rear these to adulthood, but there is so little known about these. Thankfully, they don't need to feed very often from what I've read, and can last 2 months without food or longer. If anybody has any tips for further rearing, I would greatly appreciate it.

First three images: courtship – male (at bottom of first image), hovered, waved front legs and curled abdomen in the air.

No mating occured, possibly beacuse the other fly (at top of first image) appears to be a male (I could be wrong, but it looks like it has claspers).

Next three images: passive fly at top of first photo.

Last three images: fly performing the courtship at bottom of first photo.

Flies are about 20 mm long.

I saw these flies chasing each other on the trunks and branches of Juglans mandshurica bathed in the sunshine. It seems that they were mating in an unusual way, with the male's front legs touching the female's tail. At first I thought they were robber flies. But after checking the wing vein, I thought they must be something else, most probably something new for me.