Bee Fly

This is a bee fly. Not a bee, but a bee fly. A bombyliidae, if you like big-sounding words. They are not particularly well-known or understood and are often mistaken for, well, bees. Dad snapped this shot in the backyard in Victoria some time in the 1980s. We were stumped as to the identity of this creature for a while, until dad showed the picture to an insect expert at the Royal British Columbia Museum who supplied us with the answer.