When is a bee not a bee? When it’s a fly. That’s what I learned the other day while out on an abandoned yarding road near my home in Scappoose armed with my new 100mm macro lens. I was actually looking for butterflies but as this is September and northwest Oregon is one of the most butterfly-free locations in the United States, other than a few Woodland Skippers, Ochlodes sylvanoides, none were seen. What was seen however was a plethora of bees (or so I thought). I found a promising patch of some sort of wild aster and settled in for a nice afternoon of macro photography.
The first species I noted was the Honey Bee, Apis mellifera. As there are active commercial hives in the area, this was not at all unexpected. While I don’t see them as often as I would like (for reasons of conservation) I do note them regularly.
Then things went through the proverbial looking glass. I noted two other “bees” and was able to record both. The first was spectacular in both the intensity of color as well as pattern.
If you asked a child to draw a bee, this is likely what he or she would draw. The problem is, as I discovered when I sat down later at home in front of my computer monitor to identify the species I had photographed, that it is not a bee at all. It is not even a member of the Order Hymenoptera but rather that of Diptera – a fly. The exact species is unknown to me at present. I have posted it to Bug Guide requesting the assistance of the community there. So far it has reminded one community member of the Genus Helophilus, one of the “flower flies” that mimic the observable characteristics of bees in both physical appearance as well as habits.
Then I discovered a second mimic – this time on some Queen Anne’s Lace, Dacus carota.
Submission of the images of this individual to Bug Guide has already returned an identification: Eristalis arbustorum, described by Kaufman as “a European immigrant now widespread in the eastern U.S. and eastern Canada.”
Have I documented something new to the western U.S.? Not necessarily. Research on species having little or no known relationship to the physical or economic interests of humans is not often high on the priority list for funding, thus what is known about them is often limited. Kaufman cited what was understood about the species’ range at the time of the publication of his field guide. Judging by the information I was able to find on the Internet, it seems that little else other than anecdotal evidence has been recorded since.
In any case, I am absolutely astonished at what to me was an entirely new discovery – two of the three species of what I thought in the field were bees turned out to be flies mimicking bees. I was aware of this type of mimicry in moths but not flies. What’s more, it seems that these flies may also play a role in pollination of some plant species. This is why I love the study of nature. There is so much perpetually laying right before our eyes simply waiting to be noticed; it’s only a matter of paying attention.
Peace and good bird watching.
