Laphria flava
species of insect

Laphria flava, the bumblebee robberfly, yellow robberfly or yellow assassin fly, is a fly of the Asilidae family.
Features
The size of the yellow predators is variable, reaching a body length of 12 to 25 millimeters and are strongly built. They have dense hairs, which are coloured yellow and black making it resemble a bumblebee. The anterior part of the chest is covered with short, yellow hair; the posterior part of the chest has a dense, long hairs of the same colour, which are directed backwards. The back and legs are also hairy.
reddish hairs over orange on abdominal tergites 3–7
It is ifficult to distinguish from other Laphria. Wolff, Gebel and Geller-Grimm (2021), ( Majer (1997), van den Broek (1979), Stubbs and Drake (2001) all provide keys, descriptions and illustrations. Older works are also useful eg. Seguy (1920)
References
Literature
Heiko Bellmann: Insekten. 2nd edition, Steinbachs Naturführer, Eugen Ulmer Verlag, 2010, S. 145, ISBN 978-3-8001-5931-4
Heiko Bellmann: Der neue Kosmos Insektenführer.
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This entry incorporates text from “Laphria flava” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.