Bee
Today’s scenic shot comes from Scott Roche. He took it at a local farm, and say that “there were quite a few of these bad boys flying around doing the nasty with the flowers.” You’ll want to check out the larger version to really appreciate the insect portion of the photo.
Bees come in thousands of varieties, but if you think about it, they basically come in three shapes: honeybees are small with yellow and reddish-black stripes, bumblebees are huge and kind of roundish, and then there’s bugs that aren’t actually bees, that look almost like a bee but with something amiss.
This might be the third kind. The telltale is the wings: they are in the airfoil chevron shape more commonly associated with flies, and we’ve already seen that some flies go to great lengths to look like bees. Most bumblebees I’ve observed have wings with rounded ends like this. I could be wrong, however: the legs on this critter end in the clawhooks of a bee rather than the delicate pads of a fly.
Hmm, on further research, it turns out there are plenty of bees with this wing shape. So there you have it: three kinds of bees, and Dave can’t tell ‘em apart.
Any takers on getting us a more reliable ID? I’m tagging it as a bee for now.
Thanks, Scott. As usual, your picture is beautifully composed!
tceisele said,
March 27, 2008 @ 9:15 am
I’m pretty sure that I can see both a forewing and a hindwing on the left side, which would mean that it has four wings and isn’t a fly (true flies only have two wings, with the hind wings reduced to halteres). I’d say it’s a bumblebee, but the big eyes are throwing me - none of the bumblebees I’m seeing pictures of have huge eyes like that.
Of course, if bumblebees are like honeybees, then the males would have huge eyes relative to the females, so maybe this is a male of a species where I’m only seeing pictures of females.
Speaking of which: if you have access to a beehive, you can pick out the drones (males) pretty easy based on their larger size and huge eyes. The drones don’t have stingers, so you can fill a jar with them, then take them in a house and let them loose to terrorize people. Great fun!
Scott said,
March 27, 2008 @ 11:25 am
Ooh that’s twisted!
Glad you like the pic!
Dragoness said,
April 7, 2008 @ 11:31 pm
ooohhh… If I’d never seen one before I’d be hard pressed to call it, but I’ve stalked and caught a bazillion of these things, if it is what it looks like. It looks like a drone fly, which is indeed a bee mimic that is nonetheless a Diptera.
In the area that I caught most of them (California), the best way to tell them from a honeybee is the flight pattern and the fact that their eyes meet at the top. The wings are too hard to verify unless you grab one, and then if you’re wrong it’s too late!