Hoverfly Identification: Wings, Eyes and 10 Common Species

You identify a hoverfly by four things: one pair of wings, short antennae with three segments, a false vein running through the middle of the wing, and the habit of hanging still in the air. Colour alone will mislead you. The Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire puts it plainly: not all hoverflies are black and yellow, and not all black and yellow flies are hoverflies.

• Wings. Flies have one pair of wings and a pair of halteres behind them, which look like small lollipops. Bees and wasps have two pairs, hooked together so that they can look like one pair, and no halteres (Wildlife Trust BCN).
• Antennae. A bee has long antennae with many segments. A hoverfly has short antennae with three segments, often with a bristle on the third (Wildlife Trust BCN).
• The false vein. Hoverfly wings carry a spurious vein that does not join the others, running parallel to the fourth long vein (Wikipedia), plus a false margin near the wing edge. Some other flies have a false margin, but not the two together (Wildlife Trust BCN).
• Head and flight. The head is broad, about as wide as the abdomen or wider (UC IPM). Males hover to hold a territory and find mates; females hover while inspecting places to lay eggs (Wikipedia).

These are the ten garden hoverflies NatureSpot (the wildlife site for Leicestershire and Rutland) picks out as common. All occur in Britain.

• Marmalade hoverfly (*Episyrphus balteatus*): orange abdomen with black bands shaped like a moustache, sometimes white bands too. NatureSpot calls it the commonest hoverfly in the UK; it is seen all year and hibernates over winter.
• Tapered drone fly (*Eristalis pertinax*): dark brown with a pair of orange spots and pale front feet; males have a tapering abdomen. March to November.
• Batman hoverfly (*Myathropa florea*): black with orange spots, a halo of yellow hairs and a mark on the thorax shaped like the Batman logo. May to October.
• The footballer (*Helophilus pendulus*): striped thorax, orange-yellow pattern on a black abdomen and a black stripe down the face. April to November.
• Pellucid hoverfly (*Volucella pellucens*): an ivory band across the abdomen, dark wing patches and a brown scutellum (the plate at the back of the thorax). One of the largest flies in Britain. May to October.
• ***Leucozona lucorum*:** a white band across the abdomen, dark wing patches and a yellow-orange scutellum; smaller than the pellucid. May to August.
• Long hoverfly (*Sphaerophoria scripta*): yellow and black; in males the wings are shorter than the body. Its larvae eat aphids.
• ***Rhingia campestris*:** a protruding snout, orange abdomen with thin black stripes and a dark thorax. April to October. The Irish beginners' guide notes that it is the only hoverfly genus there with a long snout.
• Thick-legged hoverfly (*Syritta pipiens*): small and dark with small silvery patches on the abdomen and thickened hind legs.
• Hornet hoverfly (*Volucella inanis*): very large, yellow and black with no chestnut, and a brown thorax with thick black lines. June to September.

No. A hoverfly is a fly, and flies have no sting. UC IPM describes syrphid flies as insects that only resemble stinging bees and wasps, and Wikipedia notes that despite the warning colours hoverflies are harmless to humans. Wikipedia describes the yellow and black pattern as Batesian mimicry: a harmless insect copying the look of a dangerous one.

If something striped did sting you, it was not a hoverfly. Check the wings: two pairs and no halteres means a bee or wasp, and the bee and wasp sting page covers what to do next.

Good, on both counts that matter to gardeners.

• Pollination. Adults feed on nectar and pollen (Wikipedia; NatureSpot). Wikipedia calls hoverflies the second most important group of pollinators after wild bees.
• Pest control. Many larvae hunt slow, soft-bodied insects, especially aphids and mealybugs. UC IPM says a predatory larva eats about 100 to 400 aphids before it pupates, and development takes 2 to 4 weeks in the growing season, with 5 to 7 generations a year in some species.
• Recyclers. Not every larva is a predator. Some feed on decaying plant or animal matter; the rat-tailed maggot of the drone fly *Eristalis tenax* lives in sewage (Wikipedia).

To get more of them, UC IPM recommends growing insectary plants that feed the adults. The Irish beginners' guide adds that open flowers such as hogweed in sheltered, sunny spots are where hoverflies are easiest to watch.

The larva is the stage most people misidentify, because it looks nothing like the adult.

• Eggs: oblong, slightly curved, grey to white and about 1 mm long or less (UC IPM). Brown lacewing eggs look similar but have a short disc or knob at one end (UC IPM).
• Larvae: maggot-like, with no true legs, tapering towards the head; brown, greenish, pink or whitish; 5 to 20 mm long (UC IPM).

Since many of them feed on aphids, check any legless larva you find among aphids against this description before removing it. For other larvae, the insect larvae key sorts them by legs and head.

A photo will get most hoverflies to a group; many need more than a photo for a species name. Ireland's National Biodiversity Data Centre is blunt about it: most hoverflies cannot be recognised by sight alone, only a small number can be named from a photograph, and the rest need a specimen and a microscope.

What makes a photo useful, according to the same guide:

• Shoot the side and the face, not just the top. Typical photos from above often miss leg colour and the face pattern, which separate many species.
• Get the wing veins and legs. It names wing venation and the colour of the feet as critical features.
• Check the eyes. If the eyes meet on top of the head, the hoverfly is a male; if they do not, it depends on the genus but is most often a female.

Photograph it and InsectLens identifies it; then compare the result with the ten species above. For species-level work, the guide recommends *British Hoverflies* (Ball and others, 2nd edition, 2002).

Research and drafting for this page used AI assistance. Every figure, date and quotation was then checked line by line against the sources listed at the bottom of the page, each of which was opened while writing. Nothing here is a diagnosis. If a bite, sting or contact with an insect is followed by trouble breathing, swelling of the face or throat, spreading redness, fever or any symptom that worries you, get medical care; in the United States Poison Help (1-800-222-1222) is free, confidential and open 24 hours a day.