Hover fly (Toxomerus geminatus) - Toxomerus geminatus

Moved...

Moved in order to clear out ID Request a little.

… Ron M., 12 August, 2008 - 3:01pm

Hover fly

Thanks everyone! I've just started taking snaps of small things as a hobby, and it drives me nuts not knowing what something is. This site will come in handy. I've already searched through and ID'd quite a few of the things I've photographed, this was the first one that stumped me, but I learned something new and hopefully my key-word search abilities will be all the more useful now.

… Kurt Faler, 8 August, 2008 - 9:54am

Search tools

You might want to give this one a whirl. Numbers to insert at the top would come from the end of URLs for the insect's Info page and for your user page. (Your # is optional.)

http://boonedocks.net/bgsearch.php

… Ron Hemberger, 8 August, 2008 - 10:10am

This looks

like a male Toxomerus geminatus.

… Jon M. Yuschock, 8 August, 2008 - 7:21am

That it is

...

… Ron Hemberger, 8 August, 2008 - 9:40am

It's a hover fly

This is actually a fly "posing" as a wasp. It's a harmless Syrphid (hover fly). You can see that it has only two wings, as opposed to real bees and wasps which have four wings. The second pair of wings is reduced to small, club-like structures called halteres, which act as vibrational gyroscopes to control flight.

Which Syrphid it is exactly, I don't know...

See here for more: http://bugguide.net/node/view/196

… Armin Hinterwirth, 8 August, 2008 - 1:00am

hover fly

Thank you! I was searching everywhere for an id on this, but never thought to use "fly" as a keyword, just "bee" or "wasp".

… Kurt Faler, 8 August, 2008 - 1:05am

Next time...

try - separately - bee mimic, wasp mimic, and hornet mimic. Often works like a charm.

… Ron Hemberger, 8 August, 2008 - 9:41am