Tachinid Fly: Belvosia Borealis
June 3, 2010
Hi Daniel,
This fellow landed in a Chestnut tree today long enough for a few shots. I easily indentified it from a photo posted on your website. If I ever ran across one of these before I don’t remember it. (Probably just never noticed it) I do think I would have remembered the bumblebee colored butt though. Thanks for all you do and have a wonderful day.
Richard
North Middle Tennessee
Hi Richard,
Thanks for sending us your excellent images of Belvosia borealis, a Tachinid Fly. While the larvae are parasitoids, the adults feed on nectar and pollen as evidenced in your photographs.
As a point of clarification, with the scientific binomial system of naming living things, the first word represents the genus name, and it is capitalized. The genus is a grouping of closely related species. The second word is the species name and it is written in lower case.