“…and today we’re talking about the stolen valor of the insect world. But more on that later.”
Many plants rely on animals known as pollinators in order to reproduce and everyone likes pollinators—in part because plants are pretty great but also due to the fact that bees and butterflies have some pretty great PR. However, not all pollinators use the light side of the force. The dark-edged bee-fly gets the job done, but has a ruthless way of going about it. But hey, some of us need to get our hands dirty (doity) like the dark-edge bee fly here in LDT.
What would you call a Destiny sword made of Beyond Meat?
A dark-edged beef lie.
Description
- A dense coat of golden-brown hairs that gives it a fuzzy, bee-like appearance.
- Long, spindly black legs.
- A rigid, needle-like proboscis that’s often as long as the body.
- Dark wings with a distinctive smoky brown patch near the front edge.
Measure Up
Welcome to the beloved Measure Up segment. The official listener’s favorite part of the show! The part of the show when we present the animal’s size and dimension in relatable terms through a quiz that’s fun for the whole family. It’s also the part of the show that’s introduced by you when you send in audio of yourself saying, singing, or chittering the words Measure Up into ldtaxonomy at gmail dot com.
Adventure Time – Ghost Fly (Preview) Clip 1
Length
6.3 to 12 mm (0.4 inches)
The Royal Walls of Ceuta are a historic line of fortifications surrounding the Spanish city of Ceuta in North Africa. Originally built in 962 AD and expanded through the 18th century, the walls remain largely intact today, with only a few outer defenses lost. True or False – 1,250 bee flies go into the height of the Royal Walls of Ceuta.
True. The walls are 10–15 m (33–49 ft)
Wingspan
8.4 to 14 mm (0.5 inches)
According to the MLB, “no Major League ballparks are exactly alike, but certain aspects of the field of play must be uniform across baseball.” True or false – the distance from home to first base is exactly 2,160 bee flies long.
True – the distance to each base is 90 feet.
Fast Facts
It is found throughout much of Europe, North Africa, and Western and Central Asia. It enjoys sunny habitats like Woodland edges, Meadows, Gardens, Heathland and Parks.
The greater bee-fly is an active daytime pollinator that thrives in warm, sunny weather. It is a generalist pollinator, visiting a wide variety of flowers and sometimes providing the majority of pollination within a local habitat.
The greater bee-fly is an important early-season pollinator. A long, rigid proboscis (5.5–7.5 mm) allows it to drink nectar while hovering, often gripping flowers only with its front legs. It enjoys:
- Primroses
- Lungwort
- Bluebells
- Violets
- Various spring wildflowers
Unlike butterflies, it often feeds while hovering instead of landing.
Certain plants, such as lungwort (Pulmonaria officinalis), rely almost exclusively on it, while others have evolved flower shapes and colors specifically suited to the bee-fly.
At long distances, it locates flowers primarily by sight, preferring blue and violet blooms, while scent becomes more important at close range.
Researchers have also discovered that the fly sometimes rotates around its vertical axis during flight, though the purpose of this unusual behavior remains unknown and may be related to courtship.
At night, it shelters in trees, and during the day it is quick to flee from passing shadows.
Major Fact: Two Bees in a Pod
- Adult dark-edged bee-flies are harmless flower visitors, but their offspring take a much more… entrepreneurial approach to obtaining food.
- Females hover outside the entrances of solitary Andrena bee or wasp nests and flick their eggs toward the burrow without ever going inside.
- Before laying, the female often coats her eggs with grains of dust or sand, helping camouflage them and making them easier to toss accurately.
- Once an egg hatches, the tiny larva crawls deeper into the bee’s tunnel in search of its unsuspecting host.
- The young larva first attaches to the developing bee larva, feeding externally before later consuming it entirely.
- After finishing the bee larva, it also devours the carefully stocked cache of pollen and nectar that the mother bee collected for her offspring.
- This strategy is called parasitoidism—unlike a typical parasite, the bee-fly larva ultimately kills its host before completing development.
- Targeting already-provisioned nests means the bee-fly doesn’t have to gather food or build a nest of its own, saving enormous time and energy.
- Most victims are solitary bees rather than social species, since solitary nests are easier to infiltrate and lack armies of defensive workers.
- While this sounds villainous, bee-flies are still important pollinators as adults, making them one of nature’s best examples of a creature that can be both helpful and horrifying depending on which stage of its life you’re talking about.
Ending
So munch on some tasty pollen, attach yourself to some choice bees, and save the planet while destroying the bees like the dark-edged bee fly here in LDT.