Featured British Insect: Bombylius major
Friday, January 23rd, 2009The bee-fly, Bombylius major (Diptera: Bombyliidae), is one of my favourite British insects. Its appearance is quite distinctive as it’s reasonably sized (the body excluding the proboscis is ~1cm), quite hairy and has distinctive dark wing patterns. It’s a good flier and can often be found hovering, teasing you to take a photograph, before darting away when you get too close.
Bombylius major at rest, © Tristan Bantock
It emerges fairly early in the year (early March onwards) and will hopefully be one of the first insects I take photos of in 2009. So far I’ve been unable to take a good photo yet as the individuals I’ve encountered were too skittish to get close enough to. Fortunately a fellow flickr entomologist, tristanba (Tristan Bantock), has allowed me to use some of his photographs to illustrate this post.
Bombylius major in flight, © Tristan Bantock
Whilst the long proboscis looks a little intimidating, the fly is harmless as it uses it for feeding on the nectar of flowers. If you happened to be a sapient solitary bee you wouldn’t be pleased to see B. major flying around your burrow as its larvae parasitise the bee larvae.
