Tylecodon cacalioides big moment

The Tylecodon cacalioides pollinator, a long-proboscid horsefly or Philoliche tumidifacies, belongs to the Tabanidae family. It has arrived!

In the photo it keeps four of its six feet neatly together for landing, like a gymnast aspiring to a competition score of 10. The other two feet are spread backwards on the flanks in a posture mastered without a coach. In flight this fly leads with its proboscis, the dark, elongated, sucking mouthpart that is tubular and flexible, perfectly evolved for negotiating challenges of the long-tubed flowers it feeds from. Gymnastic coaches may advise against this style of approach.

Fly and flower species are both Little Karoo residents since times immemorial. Their mutually beneficial arrangement of food in exchange for pollen transportation was firmly established during centuries of co-evolution (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; R. Gess (Sep. 2001): Tylecodon cacalioides and a long-proboscid horse-fly. Veld & Flora; Leistner, (Ed.), 2000; iNaturalist; Wikipedia).