- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
If you stand perfectly still and don't make any jerky movements, you can usually get a close-up image of a black syrphid fly, a Mexican cactus fly, Copestylum mexicanum.
It's Friday Fly Day and this one was nectaring on a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifolia.
Mexican cactus fly on a Mexican sunflower? Yes!
The female Mexican cactus fly lays its eggs in rotting or dying cactus tissue.
To the untrained eye, syrphid flies--aka hover flies or flower flies--are often mistaken for honey bees.
Flies, however, have one pair of wings, have shorter "stubby" antennae, and large compound eyes that take up most of their head.
Bees have two pairs of wings, longer antennae, and have "narrow" eyes on the sides of their head.
Both flies and bees eat pollen, but flies have no special structures for collecting/carrying it.
But just like honey bees, syrphid flies are pollinators!
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It's Friday Fly Day, when folks post images of flies.
Flies seem to the entomological equivalent of Rodney Dangerfield's "I-don't-get-no-respect" quote.
So how about a black syrphid fly, a Mexican cactus fly, Copestylum mexicanum, nectaring on a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifolia?
The genus Copestylum includes more than 350 species in the new world, according to Martin Hauser, senior insect biosystematist with the Plant Pest Diagnostics Branch of the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA).
The female Mexican cactus fly lays its eggs in rotting or dying cactus tissue.
This fly, about 3/4 of an inch long, is a delight to see in a patch of Mexican sunflowers mostly frequented by honey bees and Gulf Fritillaries. It's big. It's bold. And it's beautiful.
Happy Friday Fly Day! Respectfully...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It's not often you see a Mexican cactus fly, Copestylum mexicanum, nectaring on a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifolia.
At first glance, you may think the insect is a carpenter bee or bumble bee.
Then you see it hovering. Then you see its head. Then you see its stubby antennae.
Fly!
It's a large black syrphid fly, aka flower fly or hover fly.
The genus Copestylum includes more than 350 species in the new world, according to Martin Hauser, senior insect biosystematist with the Plant Pest Diagnostics Branch of the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA).
Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and UC Davis professor of entomology, says the female Mexican cactus fly lays its eggs in rotting or dying cactus tissue.
This fly, about 3/4 of an inch long, was a few inches short of a neighboring cactus, a torch cactus, Echinopsis spachiana.
The cactus is neither dying nor rotten.
Thankfully.
The Mexican cactus fly simply stopped to sip some nectar from the Mexican sunflower.
