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Home » Guide » Arthropods (Arthropoda) » Hexapods (Hexapoda) » Insects (Insecta) » Flies (Diptera) » "Aschiza" » Hover Flies (Syrphidae) » Syrphinae » Syrphini » Eupeodes » subgenus Eupeodes (Eupeodes subgenus Eupeodes) » Bird Hover Fly (Eupeodes volucris)
Photo#95740
Very small fly (flower loving?) - Eupeodes volucris
Copyright © 2007 E Moon

Very small fly (flower loving?) - Eupeodes volucris
Williamson County, Texas, USA
February 13, 2007
Size: <10mm
Seen perched on the bare twigs between the elbowbush flowers, this tiny fly had pollen on its legs (more visible in another image, not shown here) indicating that it had been on the flowers at some time. The thorax was a bright metallic bronze; the eyes appeared a dark metallic brown; the face appeared white; the abdomen looked striped black and white from a distance but in the enlarged image it's clear that the wider white "stripes" are not complete. This fly sometimes had its wings folded to cover the abdomen, and sometimes spread them (as in this image.)
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Contributed by E Moon on 18 February, 2007 - 10:46am
Last updated 19 February, 2007 - 3:51pm

Think I stumbled on it
Melangyna

I am equally perplexed by syrphids, thought I'd try to help, and started to look up Scaeva pyrastri and Eupeodes, both of which I'd photographed and thought looked similar. Bingo! This one came up on the search.

I've started using the Browse tab more for situations like this one and am finding it semi-helpful.

BTW, the way you described the wings folding is typical of many small syrphids.

(Updated Nov. 1, 2008) Looking at this today makes me wonder why I thought the thumbnailed fly was like the posted one. Guess I'm becoming more discriminating with age!
… Ron Hemberger, 18 February, 2007 - 6:21pm login or register to post comments

A Syrphid fly
One of the first groups of bugs to emerge in the Spring, or in Winter if you live in Texas. Only 63 pages of syrphid photos to check in BG!
… A.W. Thomas, 18 February, 2007 - 12:44pm login or register to post comments

 
Well, I did try....
I didn't make it through all of them...but I did look at a lot of the pictures here between Tuesday and this morning when I gave up and posted the image. There didn't seem to be any way to narrow down the search visually, not even using Eric Eaton's new book...so I looked a lot of bigger flies, fatter flies, yellow and orange and gold flies, etc.

This is not a complaint, just a statement of fact...if there's a way to get to the genus level and see a picture of each species so far represented (which would shorten the search considerably) I haven't found it. I tried using the genus terms from that new book, but quite often the search feature didn't recognize them.

I'll get around to looking at the rest of the pictures later, I guess. This weekend is the Great Backyard Bird Count and I should be back out in the field already...
… E Moon, 18 February, 2007 - 12:54pm login or register to post comments

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