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It’s been a little busy around here lately, so I’m waaaay behind on my insect IDs and note-writing, and, and…. As a result, you may see a flurry of short posts for the next while as I do a bit of catching up.

Today’s insect is a puzzler for me, so I’m posting a couple of photos and inviting any and all sleuths to offer an ID. I began looking through online galleries this morning, but my net connection is running at somewhere around 21000 bps, so I’ve given up in frustration. Perhaps I’ll give it a go later tonight if the connection improves. [Edit: I've done some more checking around online and found a close match for this insect on BugGuide.net. See note below.][LATEST EDIT: I've added a note below from David Gibbs of the UK who has added more info on this fly.]

Anyhow, what have we got here? Looks like a bee. Buzzes like a bee… but nope, it isn’t a bee. So, what is it?

Setting aside that furry body and the yellow and black coloration, what do you think? Check out the posture of this insect. What does it remind you of? When was the last time you watched a fly sitting around eyeing the potato salad at a picnic? Look familiar? And what about those big eyes joined together at the middle (see below – click for large image)

Getting into the subtleties, what about those very odd antennae? Curly and fuzzy and not at all like Bumble bee antennae. And what about that tiny spherical thing just below the wings (click on above image for a better view). Does that look like one of a set of halteres poking out beneath? By the way, I just discovered that halteres were dumbbells used by the ancient Greeks for weight-lifting and also for swinging to add thrust during the long jump!

All in all, the clues point to something quite other than a Bumble bee. If you want to take a look at a real bee, mosey on over to Niches and take a gander at the Bombus photos that Wayne put up this morning. Now, that’s a bee. This is not.

So, again, what is it? At first glance, I thought it might be a species of Robber Bee (Asilidae). I probably would have put my money on it being a species of Laphria, which are the bee-mimic Robber flies. I might even have gone with it being Laphria thoracica, but there are some problems with that match. The L. thoracica’s eyes look much smaller, it has very powerful, fuzzy legs, and its antennae are more like stubby prongs rather than the elegant, curling antennae of my mystery fly. It might well be some species of Laphria, but there’s something that just doesn’t seem to wash right about that ID. I’m a little suspicious that it might belong to the Syrphidae, perhaps to the TribeMileslini or Tribe Eristalini, both of which encompass some amazing bee and wasp mimics.

I leave this mystery unsolved for the moment. Everyone please feel free to post an opinion, guess, or other comment.

[EDIT: As mentioned in the above edit, I'd believed I'd found what looked like a fairly good match for this insect. It looked to be some species of the Genus Mallota, a Bee-like fly. Mallota are from the Tribe Eristalini, Subfamily Eristalinae of the Family Syrphidae. Here are some photos of Mallota from BugGuide.net. However, see the following edit for the latest info on this fly].[NEW EDIT: David Gibbs, an entomologist from the UK, has left a comment below stating that this fly is a hoverfly (Syrphidae), in the genus Volucella. Here is the taxonomy of this genus (from the Bugguide.net site) for anyone who might be interested.]

Tags: Asilidae, Robber Fly, Laphria, halteres, Syrphidae, Tribe Mileslini, Tribe Eristalini, Bee-mimic fly