A fly in a bee's disguise: a brand-new hoverfly turns up in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest

In the lowland rainforest of Ecuador's Napo Province, a fly that looks uncannily like a stingless bee has turned out to be a species science had never named. Called Ubristes mirabilissimus — roughly, 'the most wonderful' of its kind — it copies the bees with long antennae, thickened hind legs and matching colours, and flies low in a zig-zag that may explain why it stayed hidden for so long. Only four specimens are known, from two forest sites about 35 kilometres (about 22 miles) apart. Naming it lifts its small genus from four species to five and gives researchers the group's first-ever DNA barcodes — a reference point for finding more of these rare flies.

SDG 15 · Life on land