Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Hovering visit

Dronefly or Hoverfly, family SyrphidaeJust a quickie today, bit busy with uni work and all that. Thought I would post an image, so here's something I've always thought was quite pretty. It's a hoverfly/dronefly (family Syrphidae) that I occasionally see in the warmer months though it doesn't generally hang around to be photographed. I found it at night for this photo.

The eyes of this beast impress me greatly. Pretty. Oh, and if anyone could tell me what that thing on its back (to the rear of the thorax, looks transparent?) is I'd be much obliged.

Darn it, I've got all these great blog posts lined up in my mind (for example, the story of the teaser creature) but don't have the time right now to write them. They will come eventally, I promise!

2 comments:

Snail said...

What a magnificent hoverfly! I don't know anything about them but there's a fly expert (several of them) at ANIC (Australian National Insect Collection), who might be able to help.

Anonymous said...

About the thing behind it's wing, I think it's the calypter(s).
I found it in the fly atlas:
http://www.ento.csiro.au/biology/fly/fly.html#
I couldn't find out what they do though.