Common wasp hover fly
| Common wasp hover fly | ||||||||||||
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Common wasp hover fly ( Chrysotoxum cautum ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Chrysotoxum cautum | ||||||||||||
| ( Harris , 1776) |
The common wasp hover fly ( Chrysotoxum cautum ) is a fly from the family of hover flies (Syrphidae).
features
The flies reach a length of 10 to 15 millimeters. They are relatively large and look very much like a wasp. The black antennae are stretched forward, the first two links are about the same length as the third. The abdomen is hairy and shows four yellow, arc-shaped pairs of spots, which are separated in the middle in black. On the abdomen side, the segments have two to four more oblique, yellow pairs of spots on the front edge of each segment. The mesonotum is black and shows a light longitudinal line on either side of the middle, which is more or less clearly formed almost to a scutellum . This shimmers brownish in the middle and is also hairy brown. The legs are yellow, the femora of the first two pairs of legs are red and dark at the base. The males have relatively large genital organs at the end of the abdomen, which extend on the abdomen to the front edge of the fourth segment.
Way of life
The animals fly in Europe from May to August and frequently visit the flowers of geranium and ground elder . The larvae live in the soil and feed on zoophag living on roots leaf or scale insects . The species is most common in the hill country.
swell
- Gerald Bothe: Hoverflies. German Youth Association for Nature Observation, Hamburg 1996.
- Joachim & Hiroko Haupt: Flies and mosquitoes: observation, way of life. Naturbuch-Verlag, Augsburg 1998, ISBN 3-89440-278-4 .
