Black-banded hover fly
The black-banded hover fly is an orange-yellow fly with thin dark stripes across its tail. It has big dark purple eyes and a shiny blue patch on its forehead. It is happy to live in towns and gardens.
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Fun facts
Its larvae eat lots of aphids, so gardeners are happy to have it around.
The stripes on its tail depend on the weather. If the pupa grows up in cool weather, the dark bands come out thicker.
The top of its body has a shiny black shield, and the rest is covered in orange-yellow hair.
In eastern Australia it is the hover fly of its group that collectors find most often.
Most asked questions about Black-banded hover fly
?Do hover flies sting?
No. It looks a little like a wasp, but it is a fly and cannot sting.
?What does the black-banded hover fly eat?
The grown-ups visit flowers, and the larvae eat aphids.
?How big is the black-banded hover fly?
Most are about 1 to 2 centimetres long.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Episyrphus viridaureus
- Group
- Flies and mosquitoes
- Family
- Syrphidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Diptera > Syrphidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania, Asia
Where the facts come from
- Episyrphus viridaureus (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 Jeevan Jose, Kerala, India. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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