I found a roadkill victim of a Japanese keelback (Hebius vibakari, family Colubridae) lying supine on a farm road at the foot of a mountain. The semidried carcass had attracted various early scavengers which included the greenbottle greenbottle fly (unidentified, family Calliphoridae), the flesh fly (unidentified, family Sarcophagidae) and workers of the Japanese carpenter ant (Camponotus japonicus, family Formicidae). Those flies licked the wounds of the decomposing dead snake, groomed themselves and flew around. For a size comparison, a plastic scale of 15 cm was placed beside the carcass. Captured in the sunny latemorning (around 10:35 AM) of lateJuly 2023 in Japan. FYI, the continuous noise in the background was a chorus of male cicadae (Platypleura kaempferi, family Cicadidae).

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