Flies tongue

Helophilus sp.

I was collecting a series of shots of this fly, chiefly for my records and to facilitate ID. The fly was giving me quite a show, so I took a few shots of the tongue collecting pollen.

What was interesting was the fork at the end of the long tongue, which it used to grip the stamen and scrape up the pollen pieces. Quite an efficient process that I never noticed before.

Dave