Eastern Calligrapher

Meet an Eastern Calligrapher, an insect I probably haven't shown you before. (At least I hope it's an Eastern Calligrapher; some of its relatives look similar.)

Eastern Calligraphers are part of a very large group of insects sometimes called hover flies (the males will hover around, either defending a territory from other males or just hoping to get the attention of a female), sometimes called flower flies (the adults feed off of the nectar and pollen of flowering plants), and sometimes called syrphid flies (pronounced SUR-fid, which appears to come from Greek and Latin words loosely meaning "descended from gnats").

These flies have a waspy look, are considered wasp mimics, and since they can't sting, they're a good example of Batesian mimicry. Notice though that as flies, they have only 1 pair of wings whereas wasps, bees, and most flying insects have 2 pairs of wings. 

They're considered pollinators, though they're probably not as effective as bees/wasps since their bodies lack bristles that could easily transport pollen from one plant to another. Even though they're less likely to pollinate a flower, it still occasionally happens though, so they're potentially valuable in a garden for this reason.

But there's another reason Eastern Calligraphers in particular and syrphids in general are potentially helpful to a garden: as kids (AKA larva) they eat garden pests like aphids and mites.

July 25, 2021 at Duke Farms
Photo 148652688, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


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