Mydas fly
The mydas fly is a big black fly with a bright orange band on its body. It looks a lot like a stinging wasp, but it is only pretending. Its feelers end in little clubs.
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Fun facts
Its wings can stretch more than 5 centimetres from tip to tip.
It copies the look of spider wasps so that birds are scared of it.
It even curls and jabs its tail end, acting as if it could sting.
Its larvae live in old rotting trees and eat the grubs of other beetles.
The grown-up flies come out in the middle of summer.
Most asked questions about Mydas fly
?Does the mydas fly sting?
No. It only looks and acts like a wasp, but it has no sting.
?What does a mydas fly eat?
The adults drink nectar and eat pollen. The larvae eat beetle grubs in rotten wood.
?How big is a mydas fly?
It is about 2,5 to 3 centimetres long, a really big fly.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Mydas clavatus
- Group
- Flies and mosquitoes
- Family
- Mydidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Diptera > Mydidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Clubbed mydas fly
Where the facts come from
- Mydas clavatus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Internet Archive Book Images. No restrictions, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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