Babbling flies

They feed on aphids, respectively, they could predate there.

Tarragon basket size is about 2 mm. And what size are the larvae of babblers?
For some reason, I thought the maggots were inside the baskets.
And are there any gall-forming plants among the babblers?

Tarragon basket size is about 2 mm. And what size are the larvae of babblers?
For some reason, I thought the maggots were inside the baskets.
And are there any gall-forming plants among the babblers?

Larvae of babblers-aphidophages on average five millimeters somewhere. But there are also large ones, about two centimeters each. There are no gall-forming plants among the babblers, there are mines, for example, on wild garlic. But they can live in gauls, such as pemphigus aphids, predating them. In general, the biology of many species has not yet been studied and will bring many more surprises. So, recently it turned out that one of the Costa Rican species Allograpta was a leaf miner on a bell. The funny thing is that the whole genus is aphidophages. And all the huge subfamily to which this genus belongs - predators. For sirfids, this was the rule - within the same genus, biology is monotonous... And there are many such examples now. But gall-forming babblers, and even on sagebrush, were not found. But pollen of wormwood and other anemophiles is eaten by babblers, there is literature.
By the way, at my work, one girl is finishing her dissertation on wormwood trees and even touches on the issue of consortia. I casually identified the stem galls of leaf-twigs to her. Coincidence.

It turns out that larvae are engaged in pollination?
Grisha, do you know if those people who eat wormwood pollen also live in Ukraine? Otherwise, the quoted article is not about our territory.

It turns out that larvae are engaged in pollination?
Grisha, do you know if those people who eat wormwood pollen also live in Ukraine? Otherwise, the quoted article is not about our territory.

There may be larvae, probably, but then it's a scientific discovery, probably - I've never heard of anything like it. Representatives of the genera Platycheirus and Melanostoma ate wormwood pollen in the Far East, just like in our country.
Mutin V. A. Food relations of babblers (Diptera, Syrphidae) with anemophilic plants // Dipteran faunas of the USSR and their role in ecosystems, L., 1984, pp. 79-80.

Well, it was discovered that the larvae of sirfids can eat pollen from plants... And this is in the genus Allograpta, which until recently was considered exclusively predatory, and in which miners were recently found.
Screenshot from here:
Mengual, X, Ståhls, G. and Rojo, S. 2008. Molecular phylogeny of Allograpta (Diptera, Syrphidae) reveals diversity of lineages and non-monophyly of phytophagous taxa. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 49 (3), 715-727.

Pictures:

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