July 9

9th July

Next>

Original Hedgerow, leg 1.

Frequent showers.

One of the more glamorous Ptycopterids: Ptychoptera contaminata. Closely related to Craneflies.

Although I recently showed the beetle-like seeds of Cow Parsley, this solitary specimen still made me look twice.

A couple of shots of the excellent hoverfly Volucella zonaria. Quite large at around 2 cm. long.

And another very frequent hoverfly - Episyrphus balteatus - the Marmalade Hoverfly.

This pair of images highlight the difficulty in Ichneumonid identification. The colouration is exactly the same, and the only obvious difference is the size of the antennae.

And now a truly minute (3mm.) Ichneumonid. The right-hand image shows the three extra eyes on the back of the head. These extra eyes react more quickly to movement and light change than the ordinary eyes. The current theory is that the main eyes are used to detect slow things like food and potential mates, whilst the extra eyes are used to detect predators.

I rather liked the reddish emphasis of this fly.

A very turquoise Blowfly.