Posted by nick upton on 27-08-2011 14:36
#1
Can anyone help ID this bee fly? Maybe a Villa sp.?? though I can't find a good match for it.
It was flexing its abdomen in some dry soil behind a beach on Samos, a Greek Island within sight of the Turkish coast. I read that some female bee flies have soil/sand collecting chambers on their abdomens and that they coat their eggs in soil, maybe to camouflage them/make them heavier, before flicking them into the burrows of the solitary bee species they parasitise. Neat.. I guess this bee fly was collecting soil for this purpose. Another bee fly - Hemipenthes velutina I think - was doing the same thing nearby.
22.8.2011 c13mm Samos north coast, Greece.
Edited by nick upton on 11-09-2011 21:01