Question: Did the hover fly trick you at first when you first saw it?

John Paterson answered on 13 Jun 2019:

Yes, definitely. Some of them are really good at mimicking other species. They do this so that other animals won’t attack them because they look like bees or wasps, so think hoverflies can sting them (they can’t). Once you get used to identifying them the differences between them and bees or wasps are quite obvious so now I can identify hoverflies in a second or two. But it takes a lot of practice.