Taken in my garden at Brighton, Victoria. Although not native to Australia, Coriander (Coriandrum sativum) is a useful herb to have in the garden. Insects seem to be attraced to the flowers.

I love the Melbourne Museum - This is their response to this photo.

Thank you for sending your hover fly image into Discovery Centre at Melbourne Museum for identification.

Hover flies are from the family Syrphidae and there are at least 169 species of this family in Australia and many more around the world. Unfortunately we don't have a Dipteran expert currently at the Museum and we are unable to say from an image whether the hover fly is a native or introduced species as many of the species look superficially similar and may require examination under a microscope to get to the species level.

If you are interested the link below is to a Brisbane website that has some nice images of various species of Syrphidae.
http://www.brisbaneinsects.com/brisbane_flies/SYRPHIDAE.htm


Kind Regards, Simon.