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This is probably common, but I can't find it on the net. Anyone?

Thanks,

Andr?

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Eristalis tenax

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Can you explain to me why there are no horizontal white stripes on the body of my videograbs? Female, juv..?

Andr

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Maybe melanistic. In some species, the very dark specimens often are intersexes (Scaeva, Melanostoma, Pyrophaena, Parasyrphus). I do not know if the same thing happens in Eristalis.

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Well, this one is not melanistic. There is a shimmering red visible in the snapshot. This one can be a very fresh specimen, where colour has not fully formed yet. Also there seems to be a connection between bodycolour and temperature at emergence; the colder it was, the darker the specimen stays. In E. tenax the wide range between very red and very dark specimens is a normal phenomenon.

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Thank you all.

Andr

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Did you know that among some alligator-species (like Aligator sinensis) temperature determines whether only males, only females or both emerge from the nests?
May be interesting how this works among insectspecies... I guess.
Well, so far my sidestep...

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In my region, the bavarian forest and eastern northbavaria, such dark spezimen of E. tenax are quite normal. I see them very often.

Gisela

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They are very common everywhere, jawohl