It fell out of the air and died right next to me. Spotted in Melbourne Australia. Quite small, a bit smaller than the tip of a standard flathead screwdriver
A bit of Google Lens’ing suggests it looks quite similar to Eupeodes lapponicus, but that’s a European/North American species. I’m a bit awestruck by the pattern
No stinger
It’s a hoverfly. They’re bee mimics
Thanks. They’re honestly kinda cute, and if a little larger, I probably would’ve mistaken it for a bee before noticing the lack of a stinger
I used Picture Insect and it says hover fly. Now I have to check if I signed up to a free trial for something I don’t want to pay for down the road.
Thanks M!
Hoverfly
Once upon a time there was a bucket of nasty water. I noticed something swimming around in it. I was shocked to see what looked like huge maggots with long tails like a mouse’s, flip flopping around like mosquito larvae but so much worse. After some googling I learned it was probably hoverfly larvae and since then I never looked at these flies the same way.