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Hover fly

Toxomerus geminatus

Description:

Before I joined this Project a couple of days ago, I would have called this a bee. But after seeing so many pictures that look like bees, but in fact are flies, maybe it's a fly? And I think it's a pollinator because it's sitting in this aster's pollen, but good chance I'm wrong on that count, too!

Habitat:

Meadow along wood's edge in southeastern PA USA

1 Species ID Suggestions

misako
misako 12 years ago
Hover fly
Toxomerus geminatus Species Toxomerus geminatus - BugGuide.Net


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7 Comments

misako
misako 12 years ago

Glad to help Mostly Microbe!

Mostly Microbe
Mostly Microbe 12 years ago

Thank you @misako.hill for the ID and link.
Thank you for the compliments and suggestion @textless and @AshishNimkar. I will have to try the cropping suggestion and see how that might improve the details of this Hover Fly...
And ditto on the thanks to @JuanDiTrani for info on pollinators. I'm learning so much here and really appreciate the collective knowledge on this site!

Ashish Nimkar
Ashish Nimkar 12 years ago

Thanks Juan for clarification about pollination...

Juan DiTrani
Juan DiTrani 12 years ago

Hi Mostly,
Not all the insects comming to a flower or feeding on pollen are pollinators. Been pollinators imply the animal is helping the movement from pollen grains to the female parts of the flower. Despite flies can pollinate a few plants, they are lacking structures for carrying pollen. It´s well known the best pollinators are bees.

Ashish Nimkar
Ashish Nimkar 12 years ago

This is very clear shot.
Can crop this picture and add separate image to get more closer look.
Great spotting..!!

textless
textless 12 years ago

Beautiful photo. :)

misako
misako 12 years ago

@Mostly Microbe: It is definitely a Hover fly. Possibly Toxomerus geminatus. You can look through the photos on this website and confirm: http://bugguide.net/node/view/8222. If you keep clicking on the species name, the photos will change.

Mostly Microbe
Spotted by
Mostly Microbe

Fort Washington, Pennsylvania

Spotted on Sep 16, 2011
Submitted on Sep 16, 2011

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