Pied Hovefly Scaeva pyrastri. Easy to ID, black body & white markings, 10-12mm winglength. Widespread in UK, seen in Summer. Hovers over flowers while feeding. I see it regularly in my garden in Hunmanby.

#hoverfly #ukwildlife #macrophotography #paulspatch #pollinator

Shape-shifting in relative wing length of juvenile shorebirds: no evidence of developmental temperatures driving morphological changes vist.ly/32exv #BodyMass #Morphology #ShoreBirds #WingLength

This fly is even small than the Pipunculid I posted earlier. Winglength just 1.2mm. It is Thaumatomyia notata, sometimes known as the Yellow Swarming Fly.

I've had the pleasure of transcribing or re-calculating winglength measurements for most Carboniferous through early Permian insects as currently known, and what I will say is that there IS a shift in mean insect body sizes, this happens around the Gzhelian, in association w the origin of Eumetabola

How big do them ragworms get round here? Had an Oyk wrangling this monstah at Pin Mill by the thin end and it definitely reached from bill tip to toes. So if an Oyk has winglength of 25cm would that be a worm of 35cm?