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Bee Fly - Bombylius Species

Lovely and fluffy. Buzzing about full of energy, hovering interestedly in front of your face as you walk through a meadow. Soft hums intonated with tiny high pitched vocalisations, seemingly of curiosity. The beefly is a lovely animal. He uses his long tongue to sip nectar from flowers and is an incredibly adept flier, hovering statically and moving with huge speed. When he spots a female he will fly up to heights of up to 2.5m and chase off all neighbouring males. Once finished fighting off intruders he will spin enthusiastically at the female to woo her. Unfortunately, however, her life is a less friendly one. The female bee-fly will buzz along searching for a mining bees burrow. When she finds one she will rapidly twist her body and flick an egg, with great accuracy, right into the burrow while hovering! The egg rolls deep into the burrow and when it hatches, it will crawl towards the host’s larva and wait for them to grow to almost full size before striking. It will latch on to the bee’s larva and suck out its bodily fluids, eventually killing it. 

The bee-fly’s larva will now pupate and fly innocently out of the burrow.

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