Robber Fly Bee Mimic and a Butterfly

Here is Laphria macquarti a bumble bee mimic robber fly.

At first glance these guys look like a bumble bee but on closer look you can see this guy has fly features. The legs are big and hairy for catching flies and bees in mid-air.

They tend to sit and wait for other flies to fly by then lash out to catch their prey. This guy seems to not care about the green fly right next to him.

Maybe the robber fly prefers larger prey. Maybe the green fly feels safe being guarded by a large robber fly.

Here is a wild rose full of bee mimics. The large bumble bee mimc in this flower is not a robber fly. It is more of a hover fly that feeds off pollen, its legs are smaller as it doesn't need to catch prey in mid-air. The other tiny flies have wasp stripe coloring but they are just tiny hover flies.

Here are a few mobile phone shots of
Speyeria cybele the great spangled fritillary.

Fortunately this fritillary was too busy feasting on milkweed to fly away while I snuck up on him.