This lovely creature is a horse fly from the family Tabanidae of the order Diptera. They are huge (by fly standards) and leave large welts, and can carry disease...which is why you want to keep them away from your horses.
And that is just why this week's mystery artifact exists. It's a horse fly net meant to keep the flies from settling on our friends the horses. Horse fly nets are designed to shake and shimmy at the slightest movement of the horses back muscles and of course we know that shooing a fly is just that easy.
Here's a horse fly net on a horse!
Stay tuned! We'll have another Mystery Artifact very soon. In the mean time come out and see our next demonstration on Monday June 24 at 11:15 ish. We'll be catching flies (fly balls that is) as we explore the history of baseball in our "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" program.
Have a great weekend!
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