Trivittate Marsh Fly

Helophilus trivittatus · Order: Diptera · Family: Syrphidae

Also called: Trivittate Sun Fly, Large Tiger Hoverfly

No source yet on danger. We have no source yet on whether it bites, stings or damages anything.
Trivittate Marsh Fly
Photo: Michael Knapp, CC BY

The Trivittate Marsh Fly is a medium-sized hoverfly with a wing length of about 10 to 12 mm. It has a distinctive face stripe that is wide and yellow, sometimes with a central reddish-brown line, and its thorax shows alternating narrow yellow and broader dark brown stripes. Adults visit many flowers for nectar, while the larvae live in decaying plant material such as cattail rhizomes and reeds.

Source: Wikipedia

How to recognize it

Face: a broad yellow stripe, possibly with a central reddish-brown stripe. Thorax: four narrow pale yellow stripes alternating with three wider dark brown stripes.

Source: Wikipedia

Size

Wing length ranges from 10.25 to 12.25 mm (0.404 to 0.482 in).

Source: Wikipedia

Where it lives

Found in wetlands, river edges, seasonally flooded grasslands and salt-marshes. In southern Europe it often frequents irrigation ditches on farmland.

Source: Wikipedia

What it eats

Adults feed on a wide variety of flowers, including umbellifers, composites, Aster, Crataegus, Mentha, Ranunculus, Salix and many others. Larvae are detritivores that live in decaying rhizomes of cattails (Typha latifolia) and in beds of giant reed (Glyceria maxima).

Source: Wikipedia

Life cycle

Adults are on the wing from May through October.

Source: Wikipedia

When you see it

Flight period extends from May to October.

Source: Wikipedia

Where it comes from

Present across most of Europe and the eastern Palearctic, from Fennoscandia to the Mediterranean and east to Siberia and the Russian Far East.

Source: Wikipedia

Lookalikes

It is a Palearctic hoverfly; identification details are in specialist references.

Source: Wikipedia

More photos

Trivittate Marsh Fly photo 3
Photo: Claus Giloi, CC BY

Same family (Syrphidae)

Common Drone FlyCommon Drone FlyEristalis tenaxHarmlessMarmalade Hover FlyMarmalade Hover FlyEpisyrphus balteatusMargined CalligrapherMargined CalligrapherToxomerus marginatusEastern CalligrapherEastern CalligrapherToxomerus geminatusYellow-haired Sun FlyYellow-haired Sun FlyMyathropa floreaThick-legged Hover FlyThick-legged Hover FlySyritta pipiens

Sources

  • Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helophilus_trivittatus

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.

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