Stiletto Fly

Size about 10mm. Since this is the second time that I photograph this fly I felt motivated to find an identification and separate it from the various flies gallery. If a specimen is so distinct, not finding an ID is extremely frustrating but also unusual. I spent hours and could not even locate a close relative or a similar looking animal. This animal is quite large and is posing quite nicely. It looks similar to the Treehopper Mimicking Fly. Its mouthparts remind more of a Limoniid, a crane fly. I have gone through thousands of photos of flies, but will need to let this one rest. Maybe someone wants to chip in. The first record might be a reason why I noticed a spike in hits of the gallery it was in. I first named the animal Leia fly, because its large compound eyes look like the hair of Princess Leia in Star Wars. But browsing through most flies (in the US), I noticed that Leia is actually a fly species. I assume the black spots in front of them are eyes, too. And on top of the head there are three oculi. Very unusual. An identification that hides so well, to me, is a mystery. The beautiful ornamental pattern on chest and wings reminds me of henna tattoos. Hence its provisional name to give this animal a home. Update 17/9/2017: This morning I found another specimen of this species on our gardenia plant. Size 10mm, crouched position out of the wind. I finally managed to find the proper ID. Based on the neotype picture (of a crumbled up animal), I followed the lead and found perfect pictures matches (eg. http://www.bowerbird.org.au/observations/73045 accessed today). That solves a long standing mystery (a 5 minute search produced a result as opposed to a few hours of serious web browsing last year). Somehow I grew fond of my own phantasy name Henna-ornamented Mystery Fly, but I will change it to what seems to be commonly used. This fly is now being renamed into Stiletto Fly