Head to head
Marmalade Hoverfly vs Common Wasp
Marmalade Hoverfly
VS Common Wasp
The marmalade hoverfly dresses itself in a wasp's warning colours, and setting it beside the real common wasp shows how convincing, and how harmless, the disguise is.
| Marmalade Hoverfly | Common Wasp | |
|---|---|---|
| Scientific name | Episyrphus balteatus | Vespula vulgaris |
| Group | A hoverfly, a true fly with one pair of wings | A social wasp, with two pairs of wings |
| Sting | No sting, and entirely harmless | Can sting repeatedly in defence of its nest |
| Pattern | An orange abdomen with thin and thick black bands, about 9 to 12 mm long | A black and yellow banded body, with a black, anchor-shaped mark on its yellow face |
| Behaviour | Hovers motionless in the air before darting away | Builds a paper nest of chewed wood fibre, often underground or in a roof space, which can house several thousand workers |
| Diet | Adults feed on nectar and pollen, and the larvae eat large numbers of aphids | Workers hunt flies, caterpillars, and other insects to feed the grubs, while adults drink nectar and the juices of ripe fruit |
| Life cycle | Migrates in huge numbers across the Channel and North Sea in some years | Only the new queens survive the winter, while the old nest, workers, and males all die |
| Conservation status | Not Evaluated, but abundant across Europe and northern Asia | Not Evaluated, and an invader in New Zealand and Australia |
Marmalade Hoverfly vs Common Wasp: common questions
How can you tell a hoverfly from a wasp?
A hoverfly is a true fly with one pair of wings, big eyes, and no sting, whereas a wasp has two pairs of wings and a sting.
Why does the hoverfly look like a wasp?
Its wasp-like colours warn predators that it might sting, even though it is harmless, a defence called mimicry.
Which one is useful in gardens?
Both are useful, the hoverfly through its aphid-eating larvae and its pollination, and the wasp by killing large numbers of garden pests.