HOVER FLY

also called Flower Fly, or Syrphid Fly, any member of the insect family Syrphidae (order Diptera), which numbers about 4,000 species. Their various common names refer to the behaviour of hovering around flowers. Hover flies, with their yellow markings, resemble wasps or bees but do not bite or sting. They are distinguished from other flies by a false (spurious) vein that closely parallels the fourth longitudinal wing vein. The species vary from small, elongated, and slender (e.g., Baccha) to large (bumblebee size), hairy, and yellow and black (Criorhina). The larvae of many hover flies (e.g., Syrphus americanus, Allograpta obligae) are predatory on aphids; a larva consumes the body fluids of hundreds of aphids before entering a resting (pupa) stage. Larvae are also important in pollination. Some, such as the narcissus bulb fly (Merodon or Lampetia equestris) and the lesser bulb fly (Eumerus tuberculatus), tunnel in flower bulbs, onions, and flower corms. Microdon larvae live in ant and termite nests; Volucella larvae, in bumblebee nests; and others, in decomposing vegetation. The rat-tailed maggots (larvae) of the drone fly (Eristalis tenax), which live in drains and polluted waters, have a telescopic breathing tube at the rear that gives them their common name.