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Home » Guide » Arthropods (Arthropoda) » Hexapods (Hexapoda) » Insects (Insecta) » Flies (Diptera) » Orthorrhapha » Asiloidea » Robber Flies (Asilidae) » Asilinae » Bee Killers (Mallophora) » Mallophora fautrix
Photo#988809
bee ? teddy bear fuzzy - Mallophora fautrix
Copyright © 2014 nature4me

bee ? teddy bear fuzzy - Mallophora fautrix
Granite Shoals, Burnet County, Texas, USA
July 20, 2014

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bee ? teddy bear fuzzy - Mallophora fautrix bee ? teddy bear fuzzy - Mallophora fautrix
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Contributed by nature4me on 1 September, 2014 - 11:41am
Last updated 5 September, 2014 - 3:42pm

Moved
Moved from Robber Flies.
… Joe, 5 September, 2014 - 3:42pm login or register to post comments

Moved
Moved from Robber Flies.

Sorry. Didn't realize that this one had already been moved.
… Ken Wolgemuth, 1 September, 2014 - 12:27pm login or register to post comments

Moved (perhaps Laphria or Mallophora)
Moved from ID Request.

Believe it or not, this is a voracious predatory fly, more closely related to the common housefly than to bees. Its ancestral lineage has evolved to mimic bumblebees - to hunt and eat bees and wasps - like the wolf in sheep's clothing.

You can tell it's a robber fly, not a bee, by the depression between its large, forward directed (as in most predators, both arthropod and vertebrate) eyes, and by its small, spiky antennae.

Here's a good blog on the subject.
… Joe, 1 September, 2014 - 11:57am login or register to post comments

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