Tuesday 27 March 2012

Eye-catching Insects (8): Bee-fly

Bee-fly Bombylius major

Not a good photo, I'm afraid, but a good enough record shot for me to discover that this is probably a Bee-fly or Bombylius major. The insect was darting about and hovering in my new garden. It hardly rested for a moment, so was quite hard to catch on camera. I have seen these creatures once before - in Yorkshire.

You can read about these flies and how they mimic bees on the Natural History Museum site here. You will also see how the markings on the single pair of wings on the insect on my photo helped to confirm my identification.

Postscript: 16 April ... I have just learned that there is a rare Dotted Bee-Fly

3 comments:

Rosie Nixon Fluerty said...

I love these wee insects - just in from spending an hour photographing two of them in my garden. They are sooooooo hard to photograph! I'll have a blog post up in a few days about them.

Caroline Gill said...

I look forward to reading your post, Rosie.

Crafty Green Poet said...

they're lovely, i was mesmerised the first time isaw one alongside the Water of leith last year, then I saw several of them throughout the year