Orange-spined drone fly
A single, thin black stripe down its pale dusted face separates it from a near twin whose face carries no such line at all.
| Where | Meadows, gardens, and wasteland |
|---|---|
| Size | 10 to 13 mm long |
| When | April to September |
This drone fly is yellow haired with black legs and a dusted face crossed by one thin black stripe, plus a small, crisp dark patch near the front edge of each wing. Adults measure roughly 10 to 13 mm long.
It lives in open habitats such as meadows, gardens, and wasteland, where larvae develop in wet, enriched mud such as farmyard drains, and adults fly from April to September.
Traits
Habitat
Grassland
Colour
Black, Yellow
Active
Day
To people
Harmless to people.
Activity through the year
Often confused with
The plain-faced dronefly has a completely pale dusted face with no dark stripe and a shorter, squarer wing mark, and is close in size with a wing length of 7 to 10 mm against this species' 8.25 to 10.5 mm.
Questions
Is the Orange-spined drone fly dangerous to people?
Harmless to people.
When can you see the Orange-spined drone fly?
The Orange-spined drone fly can be seen from April to September, by day.
Plate retouched from a photo by Michael Knapp, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons Licence
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Last updated 2026-09-26. Every entry is checked against published sources.