I'm posting this more in hope than expectation, but nothing ventured nothing gained, so here goes.
In flight this insect looked like a small bumble bee, but it isn't. The antennae, the way it folds its wings, , the wing venation pattern, and the big eyes all tell me it is a true fly, one of the Diptera.
So far so good. So, my next guess was that it is a bee-mimicking hoverfly, genus Volucella. I saw the classic bee mimic Volucella bombylans at the same site. V. bombylans is highly variable in appearance. However, this insect is too small to be a Volucella, and secondly the wing venation pattern is wrong. The second long vein on this insect has a really big bend in it, like a rollercoaster. That is typical of several hoverfly groups, but Volucella has straight veins.
Which means I've got a bee-mimicking hoverfly (probably) but not Volucella, which is annoying because I don't know any others. I'm going to try other avenues of enquiry, but thought I'd try here first, just in case someone really knows their hoverflies.
Size is about half the size of a normal bumble bee, or about two thirds of a honeybee. Abdomen clothed in pale yellowish hairs, with faint dark bands. Antennae look yellow in the picture.
In flight this insect looked like a small bumble bee, but it isn't. The antennae, the way it folds its wings, , the wing venation pattern, and the big eyes all tell me it is a true fly, one of the Diptera.
So far so good. So, my next guess was that it is a bee-mimicking hoverfly, genus Volucella. I saw the classic bee mimic Volucella bombylans at the same site. V. bombylans is highly variable in appearance. However, this insect is too small to be a Volucella, and secondly the wing venation pattern is wrong. The second long vein on this insect has a really big bend in it, like a rollercoaster. That is typical of several hoverfly groups, but Volucella has straight veins.
Which means I've got a bee-mimicking hoverfly (probably) but not Volucella, which is annoying because I don't know any others. I'm going to try other avenues of enquiry, but thought I'd try here first, just in case someone really knows their hoverflies.
Size is about half the size of a normal bumble bee, or about two thirds of a honeybee. Abdomen clothed in pale yellowish hairs, with faint dark bands. Antennae look yellow in the picture.
