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Sticker of Native drone fly
Bug card No. 2964 of 4,939

Native drone fly

Eristalinus punctulatus
Eats: Nectar and pollenFlies and mosquitoesGardens and meadows6 legs

The native drone fly is a hoverfly from Australia with spotted eyes. Hoverflies can hang still in the air like tiny helicopters. You can see it almost all year round, and most of all in the Australian summer.

Lives in
Australia, and also New Caledonia and the Solomon Islands
Top speed
about 14 km/h (8.7 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. Hoverflies have no sting and do not bite.
What does it eat?
Like other hoverflies, the grown-up visits flowers to drink nectar and eat pollen.
For real!Photo of Native drone fly
Picture by DamLhard. CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

The male's big eyes touch each other on top of his head, but the female's eyes are apart.

2

There are the most of them between November and January, which is summer in Australia.

3

Hoverflies are good pollinators, because they carry pollen from flower to flower.

you asked

Most asked questions about Native drone fly

?Does the native drone fly sting?

No. It is a hoverfly, and hoverflies have no sting.

?Where does the native drone fly live?

Across Australia, and also in New Caledonia and the Solomon Islands.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Eristalinus punctulatus
Group
Flies and mosquitoes
Family
Syrphidae
Classification
Insecta > Diptera > Syrphidae
Lives on
Australia and Oceania

Where the facts come from

  1. Eristalinus punctulatus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by DamLhard. 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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