Wasp-mimic Hoverfly - Ceriana (Ceriana) ornata (Cerioides ornata)
This page contains pictures and information about Wasp-mimic Hoverflies that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.
- Body length 12mm, male
- This Hover Fly looked like a wasp. It has dark brown body colour with
yellow bands. It has a yellow face with a vertical dark median stripe. On the
stripe there are the saw patterns mimic wasp's jaw. The antenna are dark brown
and relatively long. Legs are brown then orange-yellow. Abdomen is only
slightly constricted at base. Photos show a male, female look the same except
the eyes are a bit more separated.
- Pictures were taken in Karawatha Forest near the Lagoon on Sep 2010. There were a few of them on a large gum tree trunk. They rested on the tree trunk and dip its abdomen on the bark surface regularly, seemed putting some invisible marks on the tree trunk. We did not know what exactly they were doing.
- This hoverfly mimics Eumenin Wasp. Its face even have the wasp's jaw pattern and its wing colour mimics the wasp's narrow folded wing.
- From reference information, This Hoverfly parasite attacks Trigona native bee hives.
- Reference:
- 1. Insects of Australia - CSIRO, Division of Entomology, Melbourne University Press, 2nd Edition 1991, pl 6U.
- 2. Northern Territory Insects, A Comprehensive Guide CD - Graham Brown, 2009.
- 3. The Australian Syrphid flies of the subfamily Cerioidinae (Diptera: Syrphidae): Systematics and wing folding - EF Riek, Australian Journal of Zoology 2(1) 100 - 130, 1954.
- 4. Species Ceriana (Ceriana) ornata (Saunders, 1845) - Australian Biological Resources Study, Australian Faunal Directory.
- 5. "carbonaria" Sugarbag bee - PaDIL.
