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Wet Gazania with a Hoverfly?
Is it a bee that looks like a fly, or a fly that looks like a bee?
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The Volucella Pellucens, sometimes called the Pellucid Hoverfly, this is one of the largest flies in Britain. It has a striking ivory-white-cream band across its middle and large dark spots on its wings.
Hoverflies, sometimes called flower flies, or syrphid flies, make up the insect family Syrphidae. As their common name suggests, they are often seen hovering or nectaring at flowers; the adults of many species feed mainly on nectar and pollen, while the larvae (maggots) eat a wide range of foods. In some species, the larvae are saprotrophs, eating decaying plant and animal matter in the soil or in ponds and streams. In other species, the larvae are insectivores and prey on aphids, thrips, and other plant-sucking insects.
Aphids alone cause tens of millions of dollars of damage to crops worldwide every year; because of this, aphid-eating hoverflies are being recognized as important natural enemies of pests, and potential agents for use in biological control. Some adult syrphid flies are important pollinators.
About 6,000 species in 200 genera have been described. Hoverflies are common throughout the world and can be found on all continents except Antarctica. Hoverflies are harmless to most other animals, despite their mimicry of more dangerous wasps and bees, which wards off predators.
Hoverflies ( known in America as Flower Flies ) belong to a large family of small to big flies. They are true flies with only one pair of wings ( Wasps and bees have two pairs)
This Hoverfly is gathering nectar from a Spanish Needle Flower in the vacant lot next door.
The little guy, is some kind of Non-Biting Midge.
Lake Wales, Florida.
Just a few more hoverfly photos. Likely a few more yet to come. :-) Fun watching the hidden life of nature.
Sorry again for so many photos, no need to comment, just saving to albums.
Hoverfly egg cluster. Helophilus pendulus. On the underside of a leaf overhanging a pool of water. Focus stacked using zerene
Hoverfly on my finger lured with a bit of sugar/honey syrup. Helophilus trivittatus ? Focus stacked using zerene
Nice brown-orange hoverfly cleaning itself up after being caught in rain. The thing was very bedraggled looking, but after doing its thing flew away quite happily a few minutes later. What's quite pleasing is this has no cropping, the hoverfly was the right size and I could zoom in to get a reasonable shot. Yay! Shot in a garden resting on Rhododendron, garden edges onto mixed woodlands.
On another note, this does slightly show the limitation of using a ringflash with that quite aggressive highlight on its face. I have another ringflash that I never use, a 40 year old pk ur130z designed for hassleblads and medium format cameras. It's so old that it's not possible to adjust the output hence I never use it, but having tested it I note it outputs more light than I need (rather than less). So I was thinking of making a diffuser for it, a semi hemisphere, to make it into a diffused light source. Anyone ever tried this with a ringflash?
December 2013: just to add a quick plug for the extreme macro website I've done which explains some of the eq used in this pic, the techniques etc - the site is at extreme-macro.co.uk/.
Dronefly hoverfly feeding on a crocus.
Unfortunately the first crocuses in flower in my garden are in the shade and not attracting any bugs so I cheated by picking a flower and placing it on a sunny camellia bush. It quickly attracted a drone fly
The hoverfly is a common sight in British gardens, probably across Europe. Seen here with a second specie i the background, this foremost one is "Helophilus pendulus" and the out of focus one is the "Eristalis pertinax"
Hoverfly feeding on crocus flower. Focus stacked using zerene. Using a canon 60mm EF-s macro lens with 65mm of ext tubes