This lovely little syrphid fly, with the distinctive white spots on a dark abdomen, has a couple of common names: four-spotted hover fly, four-speckled aphid fly, and various combinations thereof. Its Latin name is Dioprosopa clavata. Its body shape and coloration somewhat mimic that of a wasp, but this fly is harmless to humans and…
Tag: Syrphidae
Mexican Cactus Fly
This huge, imposing (and absolutely harmless to humans) big, black fly is the Mexican cactus fly (or Mexican flower fly), Copestylum mexicanum. It is named because the larvae feed on rotting cacti (and the adults, as you might guess from the above photo, visit flowers). This individual is about 13-15 mm long, a very big…
Dusky-Winged Hover Fly
This fantastic, big-eyed little alien — I really cannot overemphasize how funky this thing looks — is a dusky-winged hover fly, Ocyptamus fuscipennis, a harmless little syrphid fly. I tried to find something else to say about this species, but it’s another Wikipedia stub. Trying to describe “syrphid flies” as a whole gives me so…
Green Hoverfly
This shiny little marble is an adult female Ornidia obesa (most likely)…a green hover fly, or syrphid fly. (Like horse flies, female green hover flies have widely separated eyes while males have contiguous eyes, giving them a wrap-around sunglasses look.) I find these little things charming, and they’re apparently fearless: this one hung around to…
Palpada Pusilla
Another fly with no common name. Do I make a “hoverfly” page which will eventually have 6,000+ photos in it, or a separate page for each species of hoverfly? Decisions, decisions. Meet Palpada pusilla, a fly in the family Syrphidae. Syrphid flies, (or flower flies, or hoverflies), are generally beneficial pollinators as adults, eating primarily…