Small-Named. Southern Succisella, Succisella inflexa, and Volucella zonaria, Hornet Mimic Hoverfly, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
They're huge compared to other Hoverflies, Volucella zonaria, belying their Latin name: Small Flyer. About 2.5 cm and marked much like a Wasp or a Hornet, they have little need to be afraid of big lumbering people, and they'll allow you to come quite close and even alight on your hand if you're quiet enough. Volucella has a commensal relationship with wasps. They've adopted the latters' colors, and in return their larvae live on the floor of a wasp nest and feed off droppings and dead wasps thus keeping the place properly clean.
Here Wasps' Help is foraging on Small Cut-off, to translate a bit literally. Succisella is a diminutive of Succisa (a Scabious Flower). The 'Cut-off' refers to the Latin derivation. Folk tales have it that Scabious is a good herb against all kinds of ill and bad fortune. Indeed, a bane to the Devil, who sought to kill off this plant of goodness by biting away ('cutting off') its roots. Of course, that Evil was unsuccessful so we can enjoy a little picture like this one posted.
Small-Named. Southern Succisella, Succisella inflexa, and Volucella zonaria, Hornet Mimic Hoverfly, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
They're huge compared to other Hoverflies, Volucella zonaria, belying their Latin name: Small Flyer. About 2.5 cm and marked much like a Wasp or a Hornet, they have little need to be afraid of big lumbering people, and they'll allow you to come quite close and even alight on your hand if you're quiet enough. Volucella has a commensal relationship with wasps. They've adopted the latters' colors, and in return their larvae live on the floor of a wasp nest and feed off droppings and dead wasps thus keeping the place properly clean.
Here Wasps' Help is foraging on Small Cut-off, to translate a bit literally. Succisella is a diminutive of Succisa (a Scabious Flower). The 'Cut-off' refers to the Latin derivation. Folk tales have it that Scabious is a good herb against all kinds of ill and bad fortune. Indeed, a bane to the Devil, who sought to kill off this plant of goodness by biting away ('cutting off') its roots. Of course, that Evil was unsuccessful so we can enjoy a little picture like this one posted.