I've spent a lot of time looking at various plants while hunting butterfly caterpillars, and lots of other little creatures catch my attention.

These little green larvae feasting on aphids keep catching my eye, and for quite a while I've wondered what they are.

Yumm, Aphid! The yellow bug in the mouth of the green caterpillar like larva is an aphid.

I've found these bugs on a few plants. This one is on a firebush flower. I have no idea what it was eating; there were no aphids or any other juicy little bugs in sight.

The green caterpillar-like larva are really tiny. This one crawling on the plant above my finger is about as big as they get.

After they reach this size, they turn into these small brown cocoons, or pupa.

I needed to be sure, so I brought a few inside and fed them. I never thought of aphids as pet food before....

That wasn't the only surprise I got from these bugs.

I didn't know what they'd emerge as, but 'fly' really never crossed my mind!

I stared, a bit stunned, tilted my head sideways so to speak, and absorbed the idea that I'd deliberately fed and raised, well, maggots. Gross!

The little flies weren't too interested in sticking around for pictures, but I got a few by putting their container into a big, somewhat clear plastic bag and sticking my arm and the camera in it. Of course, the clouds moved in, the light was awful, and the syrphid flies didn't want to sit still for pictures.