These insects are fearsome looking, in both the larval and mature stages. The male fly is particularly terrifying in appearance due to its enormous jaws that stretch outward from the face a distance nearly half as long as its body. The mature female’s jaws, by comparison,are relatively short, no longer than the head, though they — like those of the larva but unlike the jaws of the mature male, which are used strictly to hold the female during, as Howard (1914) put it, the marital caress — are capable of delivering a severe pinch to a human careless enough to place an appendage within their range of motion. Even then, however, the pinch is of no medical consequence, as it is scarcely capable of tearing human skin and in any case is not supplied with venom. [...]