Clear-winged Striped Bee Fly
Flying, profile
Ellura
Brown-winged Striped Bee Fly
Female, dorsal, ~13mm
 
                      
Clear-winged Striped Bee Fly (Villini sp ES01)Class: Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta)
Order: Flies (Diptera)
Family: Bee Fly (Bombyliidae)
Species: Clear-winged Striped Bee Fly (Villini sp ES01)
This Photo:     Flying, posterior

General Species Information:
Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA), the Adelaide Hills and elsewhere
There's a good chance there are multiple species represented here. Striped Bee Flies (tribe Villini) are very difficult to separate into genera. We have used wing colour to separate them into groups, which isn't particularly scientific, but a reasonable delineation until more taxonomic work is done to sort this group out.
In the past we had these as Villa sp, but we then learnt there was also Exechohypopion sp. We had a go at separating one out, but Tony Daley very kindly explained the errors in the Australian taxonomy related to this group and that it's difficult to be sure a fly belongs to one genus or other; unless you can get to species in which case species characteristics are able to be used to go to that level.
We (Marie & I) strongly suspect we have a lot of undescribed species and generally from now on will be putting them in the Villini tribe, instead of the Villa genus.

Copyright © 2013-2024 Brett & Marie Smith. All Rights Reserved. Photographed 10-Feb-2013
This species is an Australian Native Species, not listed in the SA Murray Mallee Survey of 2010.