I will find you and I will kill you: Assassin Flies!

by Santosh Rajus – Coffee White Stem Borers are one of the most elusive and devastating pests of coffee plantations. They are good at hiding and escaping, making it really hard to spot them. It took me almost two seasons to spot a few in the open plantation. Most of the people in the plantation told me that these beetles are really fast and very good at hiding. Hence, they have very few predators, or, in fact, have no successful predators at all.

Walking along the plantation, I just wished to see a few more and, Bam! Something flew fast in front of eyes. Another insect followed it and immediately pinned it down on the wood log. Out of curiosity, I followed it and it was the Assassin fly, also called as Robber fly. It caught the beetle in the air and pinned it down, killing it in a few minutes. What a beauty – this insect will definitely rob your heart! In India, we have been working for more than 100 years on these beetles to find a solution to reduce the pest, but I guess nature already has the best solution 🙂 We just messed it up big time by changing their ecosystem completely.