Batman Hoverfly

 I first noticed this beautiful golden hoverfly Myatropa florea by the sound it made - a load buzz - when it was hovering close to my head in the garden. 

While I watched it settled on the rim of a flower pot full of rainwater and began laying eggs around the rim. 

This is one of the easier hoverflies to identify because of the distinctive markings on its bluish-grey thorax - that black marking at the rear edge looks like batman's silhouette.

When the eggs hatch they'll develop as rat-tailed maggots like these, with an extendable breathing tube that acts like a snorkel, allowing them to breathe air while submerged.

Transformers

Drone fly larvae, commonly known as rat-railed maggots, possess one of the most amazing pieces of equipment found in any insect larva. They live in waterlogged soil or shallow water around the margin of ponds, where the water level can rise and fall all the time - especially in a wet summer like the one we are enduring now. 

The long tail is the insect equivalent of a submarine snorkel, with muscles that allow it to shorten or elongate so that the tip of the tube is always level with the water surface.

At this stage in their life cycle they may not be high on aesthetic appeal but when they metamorphose they transform ........... 

...............into one of these 

A life that starts in stagnant mud becomes a drone fly, hovering in a sunbeam on a sunny afternoon.