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I spotted this little fly (max 10mm) in my garden yesterday (29 September 2006), on the island of Crete, in Greece. It looks a lot like a bee (stripped abdomen, hairy thorax), but its size was half of a regular honeybee. I didn't get to study it's behavior, though, I just spotted it when it sat on the soil for a little while, took a couple of shots and then it flew away and as it was so small, I quickly lost it :-(

Any idea what it might be?

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It is a presumed Villa sp, belonging to Bombyliidae. If you change the subject line to Bombyliidae, you might get a more thorugh anserwer from someone else.

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Thanks a lot! As soon as you mentioned that, so I had something more specific to search for, I noticed that it looks a lot like these two bombyliids (both Villa sp):
http://www.dipter...oto_id=713
http://www.dipter...oto_id=715

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In north Europe this would be Villa cingulata, but I don't know what look-alikes it has in the Mediterranean area.

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It does look like Villa cingulata but not safe to name most Villa from Med. without a series of specimens in good condition and even then it is often difficult to arrive at a decision.

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Thank you all for your help! According to Fauna Europaea (http://www.faunae...), Villa cingulata is not present in Crete. I performed a search there and it reports only 3 species of Villa being present on the island:
- Villa hottentotta
- Villa ixion
- Villa niphobleta
which brings 2 questions:

1) How accurate is the distribution info on Fauna Europaea?
2) Is there any reason to exclude any of the 3 abovementioned species?

Don't get me wrong. I'm really satisfied with the fact that we reached genus level, even with so bad a photo! I'm just curious and trying to learn...
Thanks again!

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1) It varies, but generally it is limited by the really small amount of dipterists working on faunstics or taxonomy of the Mediterranean fauna. I'd be surprised if we know every species present on Crete.

2. It is not Villa hottentotta. I am not familiar with the other species.

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- Villa hottentotta
- Villa ixion
- Villa niphobleta

i have specimes of all of these and do not think your Villa is any of them. i suspect that the bombyliid fauna of Crete is barely known.

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Thank you all! I agree with Kahis and David, Crete seems to be unexplored territory...