Treasure of the month July: The bumblebee forest hoverfly
1 July 2018
Photo: UHH/CeNak, Dalsgaard
Bumblebee forest hoverflies come in two different colorations.
With their long, sometimes colorful hairs, they look like bumblebees. Yet bumblebee forest hoverflies (Volucella bombylans) are not a little tricky with their appearance. Our treasure of the month belongs to the hoverflies and is on the move from May to September, especially on the edges of whales.
In its deception, this hoverfly goes even further, namely it also varies in colors. With its red coloring it resembles the stone bumblebee, with the white one the earth bumblebee. In which ratio the flies appear in which coloration depends on the frequency of the bumblebee species and their distribution in the last season.
About 50 specimens of the hoverfly are deposited in the LIB collection, many from the Hamburg area, but some from other parts of Germany and Europe. Research on them is not currently underway at LIB, but may soon be, says entomologist Dr. Martin Husemann: "It would be very interesting to find out which genes underlie the different color variants."