Its large eyes have an unusual spotted colouring.
It hovers near the flowers where it feeds. Hover flies can be useful flower pollinators and they also can help control aphids in gardens.Ībove: this native Drone Fly, Eristalinus, (Family Syrphidae) makes a droning sound like a bee. Its remarkable ability to hover in mid air and its very short antennae help distinguish it from a bee. The Flower Flies, also known as Hoverflies and Drone Flies (Family Syrphidae) and the Bee Flies (Family Bombyliidae) have many species that are common flower visitors:Ībove: this Hoverfly (Family Syrphidae) is often mistaken for a native bee because it sips nectar from flowers and its black and yellow bands look like those of a bee.
#Hover bees how to#
Take a look at our gallery of fly photos below, and read Aussie Bee's special report about how to distinguish flies from native bees. Typical flies usually also have larger eyes and shorter antennae than bees do.
In flies, the hind wings are replaced by small drumstick-shaped structures called Halteres. These act like gyroscopes and help flies to make acrobatic movements when they fly. In flies, the hind wings are replaced with two tiny club-shaped structures called halteres. The most important difference between flies and bees is that flies have two wings while bees have four wings. The following discussion focuses on flies from these two families. There are nearly 100 families of flies, but the flies tha you will see on flowers are mostly the Flower Flies (Family Syrphidae) and the Bee Flies (Family Bombyliidae). However, here we are mainly interested in the flies that commonly visit flowers and which might be mistaken for native bees. Our Australian flies are a huge group of insects that live in a massive range of environments and feed on all kinds of diets. The CSIRO says that there are an estimated 30,000 species of flies in Australia but only 6,400 species have been described so far. In fact, flies are the major pollinators for some crop and wildflower species.Ībove: Australian native flies are common flower visitors and can be useful pollinators. So flies (as well as wasps) are common flower visitors that bee-watchers will see in their garden.įlies can be helpful insects in a garden because they feed on insects such as aphids and caterpillars. Many adult flies feed on nectar from flowers and some also feed on pollen. Aussie Bee > Native Bee Identification Guide > Bee, Wasp or Fly? > Fly Photos and Identification
0 kommentar(er)
