Bug FAQSun Fly
Helophilus pendulus · Order: Diptera · Family: Syrphidae
Also called: Dangling Swamp-lover, The Footballer, Tiger Hoverfly
The Sun Fly is a hoverfly about 8.5 to 11 mm long, with black and yellow stripes on its thorax and a patterned abdomen that looks like a football. It lives near many kinds of water, from large lakes to tiny puddles, and adults visit flowers while the larvae eat decaying material.
Source: Wikipedia
How to recognize it
Its thorax has black and yellow longitudinal stripes, and the abdomen shows yellow, black and grey markings.
Source: Wikipedia
Size
Wing length ranges from 8.5 to 11.25 mm (about 0.33 to 0.44 in).
Source: Wikipedia
Where it lives
Found near a wide range of water bodies, from large lakes and rivers to small ponds, ditches and muddy puddles.
Source: Wikipedia
What it eats
Adults visit flowers for nectar and often rest on leaves.
Source: Wikipedia
Life cycle
Larvae develop in detritus, feeding on decaying organic matter.
Source: Wikipedia
Where it comes from
Distributed throughout Europe, from the Mediterranean up to Scandinavia, west to the Faroe Islands and Iceland, and east across Russia to the Pacific.
Source: Wikipedia
Lookalikes
The only similar species with a yellow border is Helophilus hybridus; male pendulus differ by the black band on the second tergite not reaching the sides.
Source: Wikipedia
Same family (Syrphidae)
Sources
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helophilus_pendulus
Look it up elsewhere: GBIF · iNaturalist · BugGuide · Wikipedia
Text written 2026-10-22 from the sources above and checked sentence by sentence against them. Data fetched 2026-10-22.