Bee mimic, home

The first bees have already emerged from their winter hibernacula, and not long behind them, their mimics are out and about. If, as English writer Charles Caleb Colton had it in the 19th century, "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," this faux bee, which is actually a species of fly, is doing a great job of laying it on thick. It's hard to tell the real from the mimic, but if you look closer than a passing glance—the advantage of using photography to document the natural world—you can see that the wannabee—sorry, I couldn't stop myself—has two, not four, wings, and much larger eyes than a true hymenopteran would possess. The antennae here are also much smaller and less prominent, and, of course, there's no stinger. This harmless flower fly gains protection by looking formidable, but it's nothing more than a clever pacifist ruse.