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Sticker of Black snipefly
Bug card No. 0432 of 4,939

Black snipefly

Chrysopilus cristatus
Eats: Other bugs and small animalsFlies and mosquitoesGardens and meadows6 legs

The black snipefly is a small fly. The male is blackish brown, and the female looks dusty yellow-grey. Its legs are two-coloured: dark grey on top and yellow lower down.

Lives in
Most of Europe
Length
6 to 8 mm (0.24 to 0.31 in)
Top speed
about 8 km/h (5 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It does not bite people.
What does it eat?
Snipe fly larvae live in damp soil and hunt tiny animals there.
For real!Photo of Black snipefly
Picture by Janet Graham. CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Black snipefly about 8 mm long (0.31 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)
small enough to sit on your fingernailcould fly across a whole football pitch in 47 secondsmoves 280 times its own body length every second

How big is Black snipefly compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It is only 6 to 8 millimetres long.

2

Males and females have different colours: the female is covered in yellow-grey dust.

3

It has a cousin that looks almost the same, but the cousin is a little bigger.

you asked

Most asked questions about Black snipefly

?How big is the black snipefly?

It is about 6 to 8 millimetres long.

?Where does the black snipefly live?

In most of Europe.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Chrysopilus cristatus
Group
Flies and mosquitoes
Family
Rhagionidae
Classification
Insecta > Diptera > Rhagionidae
Lives on
Europe

Where the facts come from

  1. Chrysopilus cristatus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Janet Graham. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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