Like millions of other organisms, Helophilus fasciatus has no common name. It is a member of the insect Family Syrphidae and is otherwise known as a Syrphid Fly or a Hover or Flower Fly. These other names are in reference to the fact they it often hovers around flowers feeding on pollen and nectar. Like other members in its genus, it is characterized by the strips on its thorax which go in the opposite direction to those on its abdomen. Although it looks like a bee or a wasp, it is neither. These and other True Flies belong to the order Diptera which means "two-wings." Bees and wasps have four wings.