Yellow-shouldered hover fly
The yellow-shouldered hover fly is a small fly with a shiny black back. Each side of its back has a yellow edge, like little yellow shoulders. Its babies are a big help to gardeners and farmers.
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Fun facts
Its larvae eat so many aphids that people use them to protect crops.
The larva is bright green-yellow with a white stripe across its body.
Its eggs are white and oval.
Its legs are mostly orange to yellow.
It lives on almost all the Pacific islands, but not in Hawaii.
Most asked questions about Yellow-shouldered hover fly
?Is the yellow-shouldered hover fly dangerous?
No. It has no sting and is harmless to people.
?What does the yellow-shouldered hover fly eat?
The grown-ups visit flowers, and the larvae eat aphids.
?How big is the yellow-shouldered hover fly?
Its body is about 1 centimetre long.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Ischiodon scutellaris
- Group
- Flies and mosquitoes
- Family
- Syrphidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Diptera > Syrphidae
- Lives on
- Asia, Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Common hover fly
Where the facts come from
- Ischiodon scutellaris (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 Rison Thumboor. CC BY-SA 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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