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I am fairly sure this fly is an asilid but I'd be glad of some advice. It flew with a very similar bumblebee (see below) so there appears to be some mimicry there.

Location: French Guyana

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and the bee...

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amazing mimicry here!

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What a beautiful fly:)

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Can you also make available a lateral shot, especially from the head? I'm not an expert at all, so may be I'm totally wrong, but the antennae do not loke very Asilid like.

Quite often mimicry is invoked for every furry fly - like Laphria flava. But equally often this idea is not convincing at all - no bumble bee comes to my mind when I see this magnificent Robber fly, L. flava. But here - wow! Wonderful combination of fly and bee, and near perfect match! Wing colour is to me very convincing!

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Here's a lateral and a frontal head-shot - sorry they aren't very clear but it does have a very large proboscis - it just likes to hide it between the front legs! :)

I remember the asilids had another nice aspect to their mimicry. They'd wait on low foliage on sunny paths, like any asilid around the world, but in flight they buzzed, just like a bee :)

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head-shot...

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While I was going through the box I found this one and thought you might be interested. It isn't the same species but it's another nice asilid - with a metallic golden-dusted thorax :)

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Thanks Chris, I never missed the moustache on a Asilid, and yes it's here too! Great flies!!

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Compare with Dasyllis haemorrhoa (Brazil) looking like Eulaema cf. bombiformis on the homepage of Fritz Geller-Grimm:
http://www.geller...nera12.htm

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Thanks G?nter - those photographs on your link are very convincing. If they are not exactly the same species of bee & asilid they are almost certainly the same genus! :D

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your bee seems really a Xylocopa sp.

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Same shape as Xylocopa - but definitey Eulaema :)

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Interesting photos Chris. Excellent Eulaema mimicry, to be sure; so good, in fact, that the fly has tricked you! The asilid is Mallophora tibialis, which is in the subfamily Asilinae; Dasyllis haemorrhoa (from Fritz Geller-Grimm's excellent site) is a Laphriinae, tribe Andrenosomatini. These two genera are the most spectacular of the Asilidae that mimic Eulaema but there are others (including cryptic spp. of Dasyllis and Eulaema that all resemble a common model). The Mallophora (Asilinae) has very different antennae and wing venation compared to the Dasyllis (Laphriinae). The second robber fly is probably a Lampria sp. (also Laphriinae). Would you be able to post a dorsal shot - to help with identification?

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Hi Eric - many many thanks for correcting my identification of the first specimen :) Here is a lateral shot - the metallic colours don't show very well but they are a little transient.

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Hi Chris,

Thanks for the second photo. This fly is definitely a Lampria, probably L. dives (Wiedemann).

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Thanks for the explanations Eric. I just remembered that I had seen this photo on Geller-Grimm's homepage and didn't have a closer look at it, but the Antenna clearly indicate the different subfamilies!

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Thanks everyone - I have a few more French Guyanan asilids here so I might post them over the Christmas period if anyone is interested :)

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Thank you Chris. It would be great to see more French Guyanan robber flies.

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All done - posted as individual threads this time, to reduce confusion - and with one extra specimen from a batch of Malaysian specimens I received a few years ago. Hope you enjoy them :)

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Thanks for all the determinations Eric - very interesting & very much appreciated :) I wish I had some more to show you but if I find anything I will post it here. :)