Entomological Etymology: the queen’s imposter (hoverflies)
So I found this cute honeybee card for my girlfriend and loved it. But something wasn’t quite right...
This photo here looks like the bug on the card, right? It’s got yellow and black stripes, and yes, it’s on a flower enjoying a meal of pollen and nectar. But this is not a bee!
The definitive feature is that this creature has only one pair of wings. That makes it a member of the Diptera, the Order of two-winged true flies. Flies have normal forewings, but their hindwings have been modified into these little nubs called halteres. The word haltere comes from Greek “halteres” and meant a small weight that someone would hold and use as a leverage while jumping. It can also mean dumbbells. So these little dumbbell wings act as tiny counterweights that help flies judge their acceleration accurately - they’re sensing organs.
Bees are members of the Order Hymenoptera, with four wings like most insects, although the boundary isn’t easy to see because the fore- and hind-wings are hooked together. Regardless, this fly is an imposter. Not a bee, but a hoverfly!
There are a bunch of differences between hoverflies and bees. The fly has much larger eyes, but its antennae are incredibly short.
A side view shows that while honeybees have round, full abdomens, the hoverfly backside is much flatter. It’s clearly evolved to be viewed from above for the mimicry to work!
Everyone knows to leave bees alone, because they’re equipped with a venomous sting and they know how to call for help. A swarm of angry bees is quite dangerous indeed. Lots of creatures have evolved to resemble bees, helping deter potential predators from bothering them.
There are lots of hoverflies, the whole family Syrphidae in fact. The word Syrphid comes from an ancient Greek word Syrphos that referred to a gnat or a winged ant. And in English we call them hoverflies because of their tendency to hover in the air over flowers. They might do this to defend their territory, or while they inspect possible places to feed or lay eggs.
Adult hoverflies and bees both eat flower products and can be helpful pollinators. But as larvae, they live very different lives. Honeybee larvae live inside of hive cells and grow up on a diet of honey, which is made mostly from flower nectar. No one is serving a meal of honey to hoverfly larvae, so they fend for themselves. They’re actually predatory, hunting other insects found around flowers. This can be great for your garden as some hoverfly can eat hundreds of plant-damaging aphids during their larval phase.
In my research, I found that this particular hoverfly species is called Epistrophe grossulariae. This was such a great weird name that I had to know more, and I learned that Epistrophe is a In rhetoric, epistrophe refers to ending a series of phrases each with the same repeated word. Epistrophe comes from the Greek root “strophe” meaning turn, and “epi” means upon. So the Greek word epistrophe means to turn upon, or to ‘return’.
And Grossulariae can refer to gooseberries, whose flowers could be a food source for hoverflies.
So in the end, this card designer fooled everyone into appreciating a fly when they thought they were getting a queen - alas, there’s no honey to be found. I was tricked, but hey, the card still looks good so I’m calling it a win!
Words: haltere, hoverfly, Syrphidae, syrphos, Epistrophe grossulariae
Sources:
Wiktionary.
Susan Mahr. Hover, flower, or Syrphid flies. University of Wisconsin.
Let’s hear it for hoverflies. NatureScot.
Douglas Harper. Online Etymology Dictionary
