I must confess to wandering around the garden looking for something to photograph, which is rarely a good place to start for a PaD in my view. I generally think the best photos leap out and bite you if you see what I mean. I’d seen a sweet and tiny butterfly on the marjoram flowers but by the time I’d found my camera then found my macro lens the tiny butterfly had gone. So I wandered around and found this.

Then I thought “what is it?” Since graduating, I’ve found that most people think that with a biology degree I should “just know” what things are but of course I don’t. So I fired up my PC and thought “how hard can it be to find out?” Now that’s the stumbling block because there doesn’t seem to be that much high quality information online about insects (unless anyone can tell me a good source). I’m pretty sure it’s not a wasp or a bee so it’s what we call a “wannabee”. It’s quite common for insects to mimic bees and wasps because they are largely left alone by predators.

A bit of poking about leads me to the conclusion that it’s a hoverfly. I found an American university page that says hoverflies have huge eyes that take up most of the face – check, short antenna – check, two wings – check and a broad band between the thorax and abdomen – check. One of the photos on the site even looked quite a lot like my insect.

What’s interesting is that I am now curious about the insects that I see whereas before my degree, I’d have dismissed them without a second thought. Now I may not be able to recognise all of the insects I see but I do appreciate their importance in our world. At least my “little bit of knowledge” is enough to help me to appreciate the natural world even more than I did before.