Wildlife: Critters Big and Small Volume #4, 1 by TheHackster

TheHackster wrote:
I'm sure enjoying macro photography. I just sit outside by my flowers and shoot away.

This is a male Hover Fly

Hover Flies (or Flower Flies, if you're American) belong to a big family of small to big flies. In summer, the majority is seen in sometimes great numbers mixing with butterflies, bees, bumble bees and other flower adorers. They are capable of strikingly swift flight and of standing still on flight. Many species are very colorful as well and often mimic hymenopterans (bees and wasps) for protection from predators.

In order to be sure the animal you are looking at is a hover fly, you have to look at the veins in the wing. Like all flies hover flies only have two wings. In hover flies, a great part of the wing's edge is without veins (mine shows this trait). Another feature of hover flies is the so-called 'floating vein'. This vein just ends nowhere. (If you look at the middle of the wing in mine, you'll see a vein that kinda fades away.) In other flies, and hymenopteran, veins usually end either at the edge of the wing, or in another vein. Both these features are have hover fly traits.

It's always easy to tell males and females apart. Like all flies, the males have much bigger eyes, which almost touch each other in the middle. Females have much smaller eyes, placed farther apart. Mine is a male - large eyes, touching.

Hack