280 days of Urbpandemonium #85

[urbpan]

When I talk about living things (which I do kind of a lot, even in real life), one of the themes I return to is this: The vast majority of living things are not beneficial to humans nor are they harmful, they simply are. Especially with insects, people want to assign every one of them to either the good guy side or the bad guy side. The insects do not choose sides. They become more abundant when we provide more habitat for them, they become less abundant when we destroy their habitat, like all living things. This picture-winged fly Delphinia picta* does no harm to us, and provides no great service to us. I think it looks really cool (especially when better photographers get ahold of it) with it's long snoot and decorated wings. Its larvae feed on compost and compost-like materials, arguably helping gardens become more fertile. But mostly this species goes about its business of replicating itself, as it has for many millions of years before humans came along to decide if it was good or bad.

* "Painted dolphin"