Sunday, May 15, 2005

Helophilus pendulus

All the pictures here are of a female. The important identification features:

  • twin, bold yellow stripes on the thorax;
  • black stripe down the middle of the yellow 'face';
  • yellow hind margin to tergites 3 and 4 (near abdomen tip);
  • hind femur third to half pale and hind tibia half or more yellow;


Click on the pictures for larger images (about 100kb each).




Nikon CP995

Helophilus key

2 comments:

Subbuteo said...

Could this be a male, as drawn in the key to the genus Helophilus in Stubbs and Falk? I would be interested to know as I have just identified a similar picture of my own, with the two eyes angled in relation to each other in their front half but nearly parallel to each other in their rear half, and a darker rear half to the frons, divided from the lighter front half.

How on earth do you get such clear sharp pictures?

best wishes,

David Carey

Brian said...

I agree this is a male for the reasons you give.

A camera with a good macro capability, a bit of patience and a lot of luck (a co-operative subject helps).