Dead Head Hoverfly

An insect I actually identified - this is a Dead Head Hoverfly, so called because allegedly the pattern on its thorax looks like a skull. And it's a hoverfly.

I don't see it myself, but I guess the 'Dead Head' hoverfly is a much cooler name than the 'Looks a Bit Like A Skull If You Squint At It, Maybe, In Poor Lighting Conditions' hoverfly. Scientific name myathropa florea, it's very common in Europe and North Africa.

I suppose humans have always had rather an obsession with seeing (and creating) skull patterns everywhere. One of my favourite paintings I saw for the first time last year in the National Gallery - The Ambassadors, by Hans Holbein. The painting itself is a vast canvas, larger even than life-size, which takes up most of a wall at the gallery. Standing directly in front of it you can see this long, thin, curiously distorted object at the bottom of the painting. It's only as you slowly walk to the right that the distortion corrects itself, and from exactly thge right angle resolves into a perfect image of a human skull. It's incredibly clever and rather disconcerting - it's a shame it's much less impressive online, because with the image shrunk, the skull shape is more obvious from the outset.