Posts Tagged: syrphids

Why Flies Are Pollinators, Too!

Will all the pollinators please stand up! Or do a fly-by like the Blue Angels or a crawl-by like babies competing in a diaper derby. Bees--there are more than 4000 of them in North America--are the main pollinators, but don't overlook butterflies, beetles, birds, bats and moths. And...

A bee fly, genus Villa, collecting pollen on a Mexican sunflower (Tithonia). (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

A bee fly, genus Villa, collecting pollen on a Mexican sunflower (Tithonia). (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Honey bee (left) and a syrphid fly, aka hover fly or flower fly, sharing a Tithonia. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Honey bee (left) and a syrphid fly, aka hover fly or flower fly, sharing a Tithonia. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Caught on the Cosmos

Cosmos flowers are somewhat like Libras. They balance. In fact, the word,  "cosmos,"  means "harmony" or "ordered universe" in Greek. Plant cosmos and you'll soon be enjoying colorful flowers that belong to the Asteraceae family, which also includes...

Syrphid on Cosmos

SYRPHID, aka flower fly or hover fly, lands on a cosmos. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Close-Up

CLOSE-UP of syrphid nectaring on a cosmos. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Hovering

Hover flies do know how to hover.   Like a helicopter with spinning blades, the hover fly lingers seemingly motionless in mid-air over a flower before zeroing down to feed on the nectar.   Sometimes they’re called flower flies. Sometimes syprhids. They’re...

Hovering

HOVERING--A hover fly hovers over a rock purslane (Calandrinia grandiflora). Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Nectaring

NECTARING--A hover fly gathers nectar from a rock purslane (Calandrinia grandiflora). (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Painting?

A PAINTING? No, it's a hover fly Photoshopped. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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