Following modified from The Diptera Site

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Home  |  Young Dipterists  |  Flies  |  Collections  |  Who's Who  |  Databases  |  Research  |  Activities & Groups  |  Our Web Flower Flies Allograpta obliqua is a common, widespread New World flower fly. Flies are found throughout the summer on a wide range of flowers. There are multiple generations. The maggots feed on aphids. Flower Flies, or hover Flies, if you are English, are conspicuous members of terrestrial ecosystems. Their size ranges from 4 mm to over 25 mm and their coloration from bright yellow or orange to dull dark black or gray with a few iridescent forms. Flower Flies are abundant on flowers, which are used as mating sites and energy sources. Only the microdontines are not found associated with flowers, but rather with their ant hosts. Many flower Flies are Batesian mimices of stinging wasps and bees (Hymenoptera). The economic importance of flower Flies is great. These Flies are pollinators of major significance. In some agroecosystems, such as orchards, they out perform native bees in pollinating the fruits. Syrphine maggots are important predators of pests, such as aphids, scales, thrips, and catepillars, and are rivaled only by lady-bird beetles and lacewings as predators useful for biological control. Some flower Flies, however, are detrimental. Maggots of a few species (Eumerus, Merodon) attack bulbs and tubers of ornamentals and vegetables. And a few species have been recorded as causing accidental myiasis in man. Flower Flies are abundant everywhere except in arid areas of the Old World and in the extreme southern latitudes, Although flower Flies range to the highest latitudes in the north, they are absent from subantararctic islands and Antarctia. Immature stages (eggs, maggots & puparia) are found in a diverse array of habitats. Larvae of the subfamily Microdontinae are inquilines in ants' nests. Those of Syrphinae are predaceous on soft-bodied arthropods, although some may occassionally be scavangers. Those of Eristalinae can predaceous (pipizines), saprophagous in litter and dead wood (most milesiines), coprophagous (some rhingiines and milesiines), mycetophagous (some rhingiines), phytophagous (as borers in tubers, stems, and wood, miners in leaves; most rhingiines, merodontines and some brachyopines), aquatic filter feeders (the rat-tailed maggots, mainly eristalines, some brachyopines and milesiines) or inquilines in social insect nests of termites, wasps, and bees (some volucellines and merodontines). The family Syrphidae is broken down into 3 subfamily and 15 tribes and contains more than 6,000 described species. Total number of species is much greater, for example, more 200 species are known from Costa Rica but not yet described. Literature on flower Flies is diffuse. There are no modern monographic treatments and only a few revisonal revisions. Recent and major works are primarily restricted to systematics. No comprehensive work on biology has ever been published. Francis Gilbert (1986, HoverFlies . Naturalists' Handbooks 5, vi + 66 pp. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) provide excellent introductions to the flower Flies. There is a list server that cover the group. Knowledge about flower Flies is being built from both the geographic and taxonomic view. The basic unit of knowledge is the species page. The following projects serve as different indexes to those species pages. Each project has a base page which describe its focus and provide access to the species pages. For example, to learn about all flower Flies, select Flower fly genera, which summaries knowledge at the next lower taxonomic level. The other projects provide a geographic indexes. For example, Nearctic flower Flies will treated all the species known to occur in North America excluding Middle America. Projects: Flower Fly Genera Nearctic Flower Flies Flower Flies of Costa Rica next fly Home  |  Young Dipterists  |  Flies  |  Collections  |  Who's Who  |  Databases  |  Research  |  Activities & Groups  |  Our Web Content by F. Christian Thompson Last Updated: August 19, 1999 by Jennifer E. Fairman

Following served from James L. Castner, University of Florida

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Following modified from BioKIDS University of Michigan

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Skip directly to main content . Kids' Inquiry of Diverse Species CyberTracker Tools Animal Diversity Web Critter Catalog Field Guides Research Resources About Us Glossary Help Critter Catalog insects true flies, including mosquitos Information Pictures Classification See also Find flower flies information at Animal Diversity Web Flower flies Syrphidae What do they look like? Adult flies of many species in this family are mimics of bees or wasps. They are mostly black with yellow or orange stripes. A few others are brown, or metallic green or blue (these may also be mimics of bees). They have large eyes and short mouthparts formed into a tube with a sponge at the end. Their bodies may be slim or stout and are sometimes flattened top-to-bottom. Some species wag they abdomens up and down when they land. Like all flies they only have two wings, their hind wings are reduced (see More Information about True Flies for more). Larvae are more variable. They are all legless and headless, but some aquatic species have long breathing tubes on their hind ends, some have tough skins, some look like little slugs. Color varies from white to brown to green. Some key physical features: ectothermic . Sexual dimorphism: sexes alike; female larger. Where in the world do they live? This family of flies is found all over the world, and there are thousands of species. Nobody knows exactly how many species there are in Michigan or in the whole Great Lakes region, but it is probably more than 150. Biogeographic Regions: nearctic ( native ); palearctic ( native ); oriental ( native ); ethiopian ( native ); neotropical ( native ); australian ( native ); oceanic islands ( introduced ). What kind of habitat do they need? Adult Flower Flies are found (surprise!) around flowers. They are also found near places where their larvae might live and feed and this is variable (see below). Flower Fly larvae live in many different types of habitats. Some live in still or slow-moving freshwater, some live in decaying wood, some live in dung, some on plants, and some in the nests of other insects. These animals are found in the following types of habitat: temperate ; tropical ; polar ; terrestrial ; freshwater . Terrestrial Biomes: tundra ; taiga ; desert or dune ; chaparral ; forest ; rainforest ; scrub forest ; mountains . Aquatic Biomes: lakes and ponds; rivers and streams. Wetlands: marsh ; swamp ; bog . How do they grow? Flower Flies have complete metamorphosis, see More Information under True Flies for the basic fly life cycle. In cold climates they spend the winter as larvae or pupae. Special features of growth: metamorphosis . How do they reproduce? After mating, female flies lay their eggs in habitat suitable to their offspring's needs. Key reproductive features: seasonal breeding ; sexual ; oviparous . There is no parental care in this family. Parental investment: no parental involvement. How long do they live? Most Flower Flies live a year or less, but some aquatic species that live in cold climates may survive as larvae for several years before metamorphosing into adults. How do they behave? Adult Flower Flies are only active on warm sunny days. Larvae may be active any time. Some species travel long distances, but most stay close to where they grew up. They are always solitary, only coming together for mating. One group of aquatic larvae have evolved a special way of getting air without going to the surface of the water, they have sharp structures on their abdomen that they stab into hollow reeds growing in the water. The reeds have air inside them, and the fly larvae breath that. Key behaviors: diurnal ; motile ; sedentary ; solitary . How do they communicate with each other? These flies find each other by sight, sound, and maybe scent. They have good wide-angle vision to find each other and watch out for predators. They can continue to make vibration noise by moving structures in their thorax even when they are not moving or flapping their wings. What do they eat? Adult flower flies feed on nectar from flowers and from aphid "honeydew" (see Aphids ). The larvae of different species feed on different kinds of food. Some feed on decaying, damp plant material, on fungi or on green plants, some on the bulbs of plants in the lily family, some in dung. Many are aquatic and live in shallow freshwater (sometimes in water that seems foul and polluted), some in water-filled treeholes. Some species are scavengers in the nests of ants or wasps. Some of the most amazing are predators on slow-moving, soft-skinned insects like aphids . These predators have no eyes and no legs, but they still hunt and eat these little insects. Primary Diet: carnivore ; herbivore . What eats them and how do they avoid being eaten? Known predators frogs (eat adults) turtles (eat aquatic larvae) common carp and bluntnose minnows (eat aquatic larvae) spiders , especially flower spiders (eat adults) mantids (eat adults) water boatmen (eat aquatic larvae) wasps (eat larvae) lady beetles (eat eggs) green lacewings (eat eggs) leeches (eat aquatic larvae) crayfish Adult flower flies rely on their high-speed flight and their similarity to stinging insects to avoid or discourage many predators. Larvae hide in muck and mud, and some live only in small treeholes where there are not very many predators. The species that live in nests of ants and wasps have adjusted their scent so they don't smell like food, and they stay out of the way of the other insects as much as they can. What roles do they have in the ecosystem? Flower Flies are imporant pollinators of many flowers. Their larvae help clean up and break down dead plants, and feed on micro-organisms. Key ways these animals impact their ecosystem: pollinates. Do they cause problems? A few species of Flower Flies have larvae that damage bulbs or green plants that are valuable to humans. They are not a major agricultural pest, but they do sometimes cause damage. Ways that these animals might be a problem for humans: crop pest. How do they interact with us? These flies can be important pollinators, and some species feed on aphids that are pests. Ways that people benefit from these animals: pollinates crops; controls pest population. Are they endangered? No Flower Fly species are currently known to be endangered.   BioKIDS home   |   Questions?   |   Animal Diversity Web   |   Cybertracker Tools BioKIDS is sponsored in part by the Interagency Education Research Initiative. It is a partnership of the University of Michigan School of Education , University of Michigan Museum of Zoology , and the Detroit Public Schools . This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant DRL-0628151. 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