Hoverfly on globe amaranth
Eristalis sp.
Drone fly · Brooklyn Botanic Garden · 26 July 2026
A drone fly on globe amaranth in the July border, one of the hoverflies that mimics a honeybee closely enough to fool most predators, and most people, despite having only two wings to a bee's four and no sting to back the disguise up. It is one of the commonest hoverflies in the world, in gardens on every continent.
The larvae are considerably less glamorous: aquatic "rat-tailed maggots" that breathe through a long retractable tube while living in stagnant water thick with organic matter. The ancients, finding the flies emerging from a dead ox, decided bees were born from carcasses.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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