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#hoverflies

2 posts2 participants0 posts today
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Coprolite9000 - Pixelfed
Some of today's bugs - a rather feisty sawfly (Tenthredo mesomela?) on nettles, a common drone fly (Eristalis tenax) on a bramble flower, another Rutpela maculata beetle, this time scaling the rhododendrons - and a tiny little longhorn beetle (Grammoptera ruficornis?).

(These are edited highlights from perhaps 20 minutes with my camera!)

#beetles #sawflies #hoverflies #insects #macrophotography #Derbyshire
Shiny, sleek black and apple-green sawfly with folded wings on a spiky-edged nettle leaf.
A rather round and fuzzy hoverfly, looking somewhere between a honey bee and a bumble bee, timidly sipping at the centre of a white-pink bramble flower.
Stripy black and yellow beetle intrepidly scaling a large pink petal of a rhododendron flower, ready to sample the nectar within.
Dainty little brown longhorn beetle on a pink-white bramble petal.
#derbyshire
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Sarah Arnold

Excited about our new project, FLYTHRIVE, with Olombria, NRI, Asplins and Summerberry Company. Hoverflies are amazing: dual-purpose beneficial insects! They are good little #pollinators, and many species also help control aphids! The larvae of the aphid-eating #hoverflies are voracious little predators that will eat up to a few dozen aphids per day.

hortnews.com/flythrive-uses-ai

#PestManagement#IPM#Horticulture
Continued thread
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Sarah Arnold

Work by Dr Katie James during her PhD found that getting it right really pays off - if plants were pollinated by both hoverflies and bumblebees, fruits were overall bigger, heavier, and typically better quality than self-pollinated plants, or those pollinated by only hoverflies, and sometimes better than fruits from bumblebee-only plants too. [3/]

#Pollination#Bumblebees#Hoverflies
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Albert Cardona

Hoverflies: Identifying Platycheirus and Pyrophaena in the UK from Photos – by Matthew Vosper inaturalist.org/projects/80883

A really good and detailed guide.

iNaturalistIdentifying Platycheirus and Pyrophaena in the UK from Photos[I have a couple of modifications still to make to this - but I've decided to put it up for now so that it can start being of use. Do let me know of any errors if you see them.] The identification of *Platycheirus* and *Pyrophaena* poses a lot of challenges from photos (and with specimens!): they are small; there are 25 of them; they often hold their wings closed, obscuring the abdomen; they are easily confused with Melanostoma; identification is often determined by minuscule features of the legs. This post includes a bit of an introduction, illustrated tips for the photo-identification of the species groups and some of the most iNatted species (that's the most useful bit), and finally illustrated details of the male forelegs of almost all species (in case you get a really excellent photo of something unusual). For information on how to distinguish these two genera in the tribe Bacchini from genera in the tribe Melanostomini see the article on that tribe. The only other UK genus in ...
#Diptera#hoverflies#flies
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