Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Hoverflies?

Options
  • 07-08-2014 9:36am
    #1
    Eponymous
    Registered Users Posts: 1,374 ✭✭✭


    There seems to be a bit of an infestation of flying insects around the trees at the bus stop at Charlesland (the sheltered stop). Looking at them this morning, while they appear to look like wasps, closer inspection shows no sting in the tail.

    Has anyone else observed them and if so, can you identify them?


Comments

  • Options
    #2
    lauraleetomas
    Registered Users Posts: 1 ✭lauraleetomas


    Err ya ..was at that Charleslanbd bus stop this morn and there were hundreds of them in the trees and in the hedges all the way through Charlesland..genius here at first thought they were wasps, but was assured they were just flies? Haven't seen them anywhere else though...and they seem to have only appeared in droves this week?


  • Options
    #3
    Annasopra
    Registered Users Posts: 41,065 ✭✭✭✭Annasopra


    Are they flying ants? Greystones was hit by a **** load of flying ants a week or too ago

    It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

    Terry Pratchet



  • Options
    #4
    LEIN
    Registered Users Posts: 9,936 ✭✭✭LEIN


    Joeytheparrot wrote: »
    Are they flying ants? Greystones was hit by a **** load of flying ants a week or too ago

    Yeah, I coughed a few of them back up after inhaling them cycling to the DART station last week. :(


  • Options
    #5
    RosieJoe
    Registered Users Posts: 3,492 ✭✭✭RosieJoe


    Eponymous wrote: »
    There seems to be a bit of an infestation of flying insects around the trees at the bus stop at Charlesland (the sheltered stop). Looking at them this morning, while they appear to look like wasps, closer inspection shows no sting in the tail.

    Has anyone else observed them and if so, can you identify them?

    They are called hover flies, see here for more information on them.
    The Irish syrphid fauna

    There are approximately 900 species of Syrphidae known in Europe (Speight et al, 2010), with 180 of them occurring in Ireland.
    Many syrphids have a general resemblance to bees or wasps and some are such good mimics that they are difficult to distinguish from their models...


  • Options
    #6
    Alun
    Registered Users Posts: 21,464 ✭✭✭✭Alun


    Loads of them here in Bray too, in fact i don't think I've seen so many before.


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #7
    Eponymous
    Registered Users Posts: 1,374 ✭✭✭Eponymous


    RosieJoe wrote: »
    They are called hover flies, see here for more information on them.
    That confirms what I'd suspected!

    Thanks RosieJoe.


Advertisement