Wednesday 8 December 2010

Laphria flava

Laphria flava is a bee like Robber-fly, around 25mm body length. Now very rare in the UK only occuring in the Caledonian pine forest area in Scotland. Like the Hornet Robber-fly, Laphria is a predator of other insects, usually catching them in mid flight.


The females are more bulky with a tapering abdomen, they deposit eggs in old pine logs and stumps.
There are many more Laphria species around the world, a lot of which are bee or wasp mimics, which is ironic since some will catch bees and wasps as prey if given the chance. 

2 comments:

  1. Your insect illustrations are wonderful! I would love to see a book full of these.

    BRAVO!

    RS Connett - Grotesque.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. thank you! I am really hoping ro get enough done to produce a small reference book...
    at some point

    ReplyDelete