Native Drone Fly
Female, dorsal
Native Drone Fly
Male, Eye
| Native Drone Fly Female, dorsal | | Native Drone Fly Male, Eye | | ||
 | Class: | Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta) | |||
| Order: | Flies (Diptera) | ||||
| Family: | Hover Fly (Syrphidae) iNaturalist Observation | ||||
| Species: | Native Drone Fly (Eristalinus punctulatus) | ||||
| This Photo: | Male, profile | ||||
Thank you Dr Martin Hauser for confirming the id of this species for us General Species Information: Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA), the Adelaide Hills and elsewhere Males & females are similar size, ~10mm long. The eyes on males touch, whereas with female the eyes are spread apart. Incredible polka-dot yellow eyes! Dr Simon Grove (when referring to these & Beautiful Hover Flies) said "their larvae are at least semiaquatic, eg in ditches, organic mud, wet rotting vegetation perhaps." Given our semi-arid environment, we surmise they were raised either in nearby damns (~3kms away) or the river (~11kms). This is a similar situation to large quantity of Odonata we find here. | |||||
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