This winter, our dog Mackey discovered a dead deer (or maybe more than one) in the fields. He brought pieces of it up to the yard. It was pretty gross, and we tried to take these things away from him. Since the ground was frozen, we put the deer legs and other parts in the back of an old pickup truck that doesn’t work anymore.
Sunday I looked at the parts–really mostly bones and skin, and not a lot of flesh, and saw some very unusual flies on both the truck and the deer parts.
This is a male. Note the huge antenna. The fly is a waltzing fly,
Prochyliza xanthostoma.
This is a female. Note the shorter antenna.
The flies walked rapidly on the carrion and also on sticks that were in the back of the pickup. I found some interesting information about this fly here.
We buried the deer parts–we had to, they were getting kind of gross. The flies will probably go away now, but I have to admit I found them more than a little charming.
The roused bear 