It's Friday Fly Day, and time to post an image of a fly that masquerades as a bee.
That would be "the bee fly," a fly so named because it resembles a bee
Order: Diptera. Family: Bombyliidae.
In its adult stage, it's a pollinator that feeds on nectar and pollen. In its larval stage, it's parasitoid. The adult bee fly lays her eggs in the nests of wasps, beetles or solitary bees and the developing larvae eat their host.
"The Bombyliidae include at least 4,500 described species, and certainly thousands more remain to be described," Wikipedia tells us. "However, most species do not often appear in abundance, and compared to other major groups of pollinators they are much less likely to visit flowering plants in urban parks or suburban gardens. As a result, this is arguably one of the most poorly known families of insects relative to its species richness. The family has a patchy fossil record, with species being known from a handful of localities the oldest known species are known from the Middle Cretaceous Burmese amber, around 99 million years old."
Bee flies have also acquired the nickname of "bomber flies." That because when the adult female is ready to "gift" a host with her eggs, she hovers over the burrow in mid-air and flicks her eggs.
Aren't insects amazing?
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