Spotted bee fly
Anthrax irroratus
The spotted bee fly is a fly that belongs to the bee flies, flies that look a bit like bees. It lives almost all over North America. Its babies grow up in a very sneaky way, inside the nests of bees and wasps.
Lives in
North and Central America, from Alaska to Honduras and Puerto Rico
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. Bee flies look a little like bees, but they cannot sting.
What does it eat?
The grown-up flies drink nectar from flowers. The babies grow up inside the nests of bees and wasps and feed on the young there.
How fast is it?
A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
Spotted bee fly about 8 km/h (5 mph)
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
It lives in a huge area, from Alaska and northern Canada down to Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras.
2
Its babies grow up inside the nests of bees and wasps that live alone, not in big groups.
3
It uses at least five different families of bees and wasps as homes for its babies.
you asked
Most asked questions about Spotted bee fly
?Can a bee fly sting?
No. It only looks a bit like a bee. Flies have no sting.
?Where does the spotted bee fly live?
Almost all over North America, and down into Central America and Puerto Rico.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Anthrax irroratus
- Group
- Flies and mosquitoes
- Family
- Bombyliidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Diptera > Bombyliidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Anthrax irroratus (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 Doug Macaulay. iNaturalist user mothmaniac. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this 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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