Europe and temperate Asia
Fine-art photographic collection
Tachina fera
A flower-visiting fly whose offspring begin life as lethal internal passengers of moth caterpillars.
About this species
Tachina fera(Linnaeus, 1761)
Information reviewed15 July 2026
Tachina fera is a large bristly tachinid fly. Adults take nectar and pollen, but the developing larva is a parasitoid of moth caterpillars, producing a dramatic switch from pollinating adult to host-killing juvenile.
Taxonomy
Animalia · Arthropoda · Insecta · Diptera · Tachinidae · Tachina
Accepted taxon. · checked 2026-07-15
Europe and temperate AsiaBroad range and selected reference localities — not a complete occurrence map.
Woodland edges, hedgerows, grassland and gardens with flowers and noctuid moth hosts.
Adults are diurnal and often conspicuous on flowers from summer into autumn.
Adults take nectar and pollen; larvae develop in caterpillar hosts.
Solitary parasitoid.
What makes this species remarkable?
The female deposits numerous tiny, already developing eggs on vegetation associated with host caterpillars rather than constructing a nest.
After entering a caterpillar, the larva grows inside a living host and eventually kills it, converting one insect’s body into its entire nursery.
The adult then changes ecological role completely, leaving parasitism behind to become a large daytime visitor of nectar- and pollen-rich flowers.