Robber flies track their beetle prey using tiny microbursts of movement

April in the Florida Panhandle. It was hot, humid, and a thunderstorm was lurking. But as a fresh graduate student, I was relieved for the escape from my first brutal Minnesota winter. I was accompanying my adviser, Paloma Gonzalez-Bellido, on a project that would end up dominating my Ph.D. work. Out in the scrubland, my eyes darted at every movement, on the alert for an insect that likes shiny beads.