Europe, North Africa and temperate Asia, with an introduced population in western North America
Fine-art photographic collection
Myathropa florea
The “Batman hoverfly” begins life as a snorkelling larva in a dark soup inside hollow trees.
About this species
Myathropa florea(Linnaeus, 1758)
Information reviewed15 July 2026
Myathropa florea is a large wasp-mimicking hoverfly of wooded landscapes. Adults visit flowers, while the aquatic rat-tailed larvae develop in water-filled tree holes and other pockets of wet decaying organic matter.
Taxonomy
Animalia · Arthropoda · Insecta · Diptera · Syrphidae · Myathropa
Accepted taxon. · checked 2026-07-15
Europe, North Africa and temperate Asia, with an introduced population in western North AmericaBroad range and selected reference localities — not a complete occurrence map.
Deciduous woodland, parks, wooded farmland and gardens with mature or decaying trees.
Adults fly from spring into autumn and often hover in woodland sunbeams.
Adults take nectar and pollen; larvae filter microorganisms and fine organic material from stagnant detritus-rich water.
Solitary.
What makes this species remarkable?
The black mark on the thorax often resembles the Batman emblem or a tiny skull, giving the species its widely used nickname.
Its rat-tailed larva lives in oxygen-poor water inside rot holes and breathes at the surface through a telescopic rear siphon.
The larva turns a foul slurry of rainwater, microbes and decaying wood into an insect, before the adult emerges as a precise wasp mimic.