View allAll Photos Tagged dronefly
Also called Eristalis Tenax. The female's eyes are separated, whereas the male's meet. They are a bee "look-alike" and can easily be taken for the real thing!
... by the wayside!
Various insects on wild angelica / Wald-Engelwurz (Angelica sylvestris)
at nature reserve 'Spessartwiesen' near Heigenbrücken, Spessart, Bavaria, Germany
Female Pied hoverfly (Scaeva pyrestri) on Achillea flowers (Achillea Cerise). Taken in the garden. Bath, BANES, England, UK
I sat back a while to watch whether any insects would come along to visit our Eight-petalled Crocus but none did. Apparently that Dronefly (inset) rather foraged for pollen on its 'normal' Six-petalled neighbor. You don't see these Eight-petallers often; Crocuses as a rule have six petals. Once in a while something in a flower's ontogenesis goes awry and this can be the result. Why that is the case is anyone's guess. Perhaps a quirk induced by a climate change. Anyone 'out there' in the know? Please tell me.
A Drone Fly on our Helenium Mardi Gras in the garden. This attractive plant is quite a favourite with the bees, hoverflies and wasps.
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Drone Fly (Eristalis tenax)
I have seen a couple of these recently. This one chose a convenient Dandelion today.
Happy Beautiful Bug Butt Thursday
Sea Thrift is a really very pretty, pink flower which grows happily along North-Atlantic seashores. It is slightly antiseptic but is not generally used medicinally because the sap can also cause skin irritations. The plant is apparently copper-tolerant and seems to absorb that element so I suppose it might be used to remove copper from soil if that's necessary.
Here our flower is being visited by a Stripe-winged Dronefly, Eristalis horticola, also rather useless. That is if you think aesthetic enjoyment has no use!
Eristalis tenax es una especie de dÃptero braquÃcero de la familia Syrphidae nativa de Europa. Tiene el tamaño y apariencia de una abeja melÃfera, y asà se la llama en inglés: drone fly (mosca zángano). Este mimetismo, común a la familia Syrphidae, posiblemente les confiere un grado de protección contra predadores, que temen la picadura de las abejas, aunque E. tenax es totalmente inofensiva ya que carece de aguijón.
It's said to be 6 C. today in Amsterdam, but the Sun is bright and warm enough for some insects. I saw a Bumblebee bumbling on its way outside my window on the third floor; some Droneflies in the Botanical Garden. And just a few doors up the street I was happily surprised by this pretty Hoverfly on Viburnum. I'm not quite sure what Our Hoverfly's scientific moniker is... No doubt she doesn't care and is intent on gathering pollen for protein sustenance; you can see the kernels sticking to her legs and tongue.
I took a whole series of shots of this fly cleaning its self, fascinating to watch wish i had recorded it now.
• Band-eyed drone fly
• Mosca tigre
Scientific classification
Kingdom:Animalia
Phylum:Arthropoda
Class:Insecta
Order:Diptera
Family:Syrphidae
Genus:Eristalinus
Subgenus:Eristalodes
Species:E. taeniops
Salinas, Canelones, Uruguay
Our local wood, Kent.
The male hovers over the female when she is feeding.
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This male Hoverfly - also known as a Drone-fly - looked like he was praying on a Hebe leaf in my garden. You can tell it's a male because his eyes are larger and almost touching whereas females have smaller eyes that are spaced farther apart.
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