It’s a bee! It’s a wasp! No, it’s a hoverfly!
The days are beginning to feel warmer, the light stretching a little longer and there is a faint buzz heard as the sun shines on the winter blooming jonquils and snowbells. The buzzing belongs to the brave midday bees venturing out from their winter hive-hibernation. But, a silent bee-like creature hums alongside them. Infinitely more graceful, hoverflies fly much like a hummingbird, staying stationary in the air while their wings beat a silent rhythm before darting back and forth. And repeat.
If you’ve read my other article, you’ll know that I have a thing for flies. Hoverflies definitely make the list of ‘cool flies you should know about’.
Hoverflies are known by their family name Syrphidae and have just one pair of wings, unlike the bees and wasps they mimic to ward off predators who have two pairs. Unlike bees, who shelter in their hives in the colder months to maintain hive temperature and health, there is evidence that Australian hoverflies migrate annually up to 1800km to warmer climes.
This includes Australia’s two most abundant species, Melangyna viridiceps and Simosyrphus grandicornis. So it appears the hoverflies in my garden may be the early birds who beat the traffic back down south in time for spring.
Hoverflies are important pollinators worldwide. So important, in fact, that it is often argued that they are the second most prolific group of pollinators after bees. Although bees carry and distribute more pollen, it’s believed that hoverflies visit more flowers and cover larger distances.
In the UK, radar studies show that up to four billion individual hoverflies of two common European species travel to and from southern Britain annually. They do so collectively carrying large amounts of pollen with them, enabling long range pollen transfer.
While the adult flies feed on flower nectar, their larvae… their maggots, if you will (they are flies, after all), have a more interesting diet. Growing up to 10mm in length, the larvae of Australia’s two most common species (listed above) are voracious predators of aphids.
The maggots feed by touch, feeling out their aphid prey then piercing their soft bodies with their mouth-hooks then sucking out their innards. Delicious. And handy for us garden owners! Hoverfly larvae are recognised as beneficial insects in commercial plant production. At home these treasures both pollinate our veggies and flower gardens and help remove the pests.
The larvae of other hoverfly species feed on decaying plant and animal matter, some even live and feed in the stagnant water of drains and sewers. Those particular beauties are aptly nicknamed rat-tailed maggots for their rear telescopic breathing siphon (a.k.a. butt snorkel) that allows them to breath in their fetid sewer puddles.
The adults who produce these delightful offspring are known as drone flies, formally Eristalis tenax, and are found on every continent on earth apart from Antarctica.
I mean, if we are talking about adaptability and survivability of a species, something that’s able to reproduce in polluted, oxygenless liquid has a pretty good chance. So, it’s not surprising how far and wide this species has conquered. The adults at least, like all hoverflies, are pollinators and thus probably smell better than their infants.
