Bug of the Week - December 12, 2012

This is the 200th Bug of the Week! Do you know what it is? If you can identify this insect, do so by submitting a comment with your answer by next Tuesday. Check back on Wednesday for the answer, and to try another identification challenge.

For those who participated in last week's challenge, the insect in question is a robber fly (family Asilidae). Congrats to Gerry, Ruud, and Jeff for their correct family identifications. You can often recognize robber flies by their "bearded" faces. I wouldn't expect anyone to ID it to species accurately from that image alone, although Jeff did get the genus correct (Diogmites). The species, as identified by the entomologist and photographer Whitney Cranshaw, is Diogmites angustipennis, for those who are curious.

_{Photo: Whitney Cranshaw, Colorado State University, Bugwood.org}