Subject: Can you confirm my suspicion that this is a horsefly?
Geographic location of the bug: Scotland
Date: 06/29/2018
Time: 02:17 PM EDT
Your letter to the bugman: Hi, I have been finding these guys lying on their back in my back garden regularly (4 in the last 2 days). I thought they may have been honey bees.
I flipped them all back onto their feet only for them to roll back over. It has been unusually warm here.
They are around 20mm in length.
I am a little concerned by the number of them appearing in my back garden because my 2 young children play there regularly.
Thanks in advance.
How you want your letter signed: Kev
Dear Kev,
This sure looks like a Horse Fly to us. The wing venation pattern matches the diagram posted to BugGuide.
Horsefly. Been seeing a lot more postings of these this year. I think they may be having a field day with the changing climate. Hopefully they can also provide some much-needed food for birds etc, since the demise of the other insects.
Earlier in the week, we did post another image of a Horse Fly from UK, and we linked to this Huffington Post article.