Pellucid Hover Fly Volucella pelluscens
Apart from Horse Flies most flies can't bite. They simply vomit the juices from their stomch onto their food and suck the liquids up again. This habit is exactly what makes Bluebottles and House Flies dangerous: their vomit contains lots of bacteria dangerous to man. Hover flies are not dangerous at all, as they will never voluntarily enter our houses. Here you see a very beautiful hover fly, called the Pellucid Hoverfly. The species can be identified easily by the beautiful ivory white band and the dark spots in the wings. In this way it imitates bumblebees, but does a rather poor job, for it is even hairless. The larvae can be found in Bumblebee nests. Probably they eat both: waist products and bumblebee larvae.
