Anthomyiid Fly

A female Anthomyiid fly, either Estalomyia festiva or Eustalomyia hilaris (Diptera: Anthomyiidae).  Superficially similar to the much commoner Anthomyia procellaris, but the pattern on the thorax is actually quite distinctive:

This individual was continually on the move, walking over the upper and lower surfaces of logs, as if searching for something. It occasionally jumped from one log to another and only flew when I accidentally disturbed it.

Photos taken in the field below Chazey Wood, near Caversham, UK, on 2012-08-12.

Parasitized Ladybird

A 7-spot ladybird, Coccinella septempunctata (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) with the cocoon of a parasite wasp, probably Dinocampus coccinellae (Hymenoptera: Braconidae). 

The females of these wasps insert their ovipositor between the abdominal plates of the ladybird and lay one egg inside the host's body cavity.  When the wasp larva hatches it proceeds to eat any other parasite eggs it finds within the host and then starts eating the host's internal organs.  When the larva is ready to pupate it immobilizes the still living host by biting through the nerves that control its legs.  The larva then makes a hole in the underside of the host, emerges, and spins a protective cocoon which remains attached to the underside of the ladybird, presumably to protect the developing wasp from predators and parasites that might attack it.

Photo taken the Wilderness, Whiteknights Park, Reading, UK, on 2012-05-24.

The Ubuntu Unity Super Key on a Thinkpad

Since 2005 I have had a IBM Thinkpad R50e laptop on which I have run various releases of Ubuntu from 5.04 onward.  Recently I upgraded from Ubuntu 10.04 LTS to 12.04 LTS.  The change in interface from Gnome 2 to Unity was a profound shock to my system and it took me several weeks to get used to it.  At one point I even installed Debian 6 in an attempt to get back to a system I felt more at home with (however, I quickly went back to Ubuntu when I realized Debian does not come with Firefox readily available). 

The main problem facing anyone using Unity on a Thinkpad is the lack of a 'Windows' key.  Unity maps its 'Super' key onto the Windows key, and the Super key is at the heart of how the Unity interface operates, being the basis for many keyboard shortcuts.  Without it you will spend a lot of time switching back and forth between mouse and keyboard.

The solution I chose was to map Caps Lock to the Super key as follows: 

System Settings > Keyboard Layout > Options > Caps Lock key behaviour > Make Caps Lock an additional Super

Now pressing Caps Lock brings up the Unity Dash.

Soldier Flies

A male Chloromyia formosa (Diptera: Stratiomyidae) on hogweed.  Note the coppery-gold coloured abdomen.  In the female the abdomen is metallic blue:

Photos taken in the field below Chazey Wood, near Caversham, UK, on 2012-07-08.

Tachinid Fly

A Lydella sp (Diptera: Tachinidae).  Identification by Erikas 'neprisikiski' here at Diptera.info.

Photos taken in Whiteknights Park, Reading, UK, on 2012-08-07.