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Cheilosia carbonaria Egger, 1860

Identification

Identification difficulty = 3. microscope_icon camera_icon_cross according to Ball & Morris, 20241

Biology

The larva of this species is unknown. Adults are most frequently occur along woodland rides and edges, usually on well-drained and calcareous soils. They fly low along track sides, woodland edges and large hedgerows and visit a range of white umbels and yellow composites. Although Stubbs (1982)2 lists this as a 'good' primary woodland indicator, it has proved not to be confined to ancient woodlands.

Flight period

The following plots show the number of unique records per week that were not reported to be of eggs, larvae or pupae. phenology

Status

Lower Risk (Nationally scarce) - Ball & Morris, 20143. Notable - Falk, 19914. Rare (RDB3) - Shirt, 19875.

Distribution

Most records are from well-wooded areas south of the Thames from Sussex to Devon. There are a few isolated records from as far north as South Lancashire. dotmap

Trends

The following plots show the Frescalo TFactor vs year and a map of the rescaled frequency (all records) for the species. For an explanation see here. trend

  1. Ball, S., & Morris, R. (2024). Hoverflies of Britain and Ireland. WILDGuides (3rd ed.). Oxford: Princeton University Press. ↩

  2. Stubbs, A. (1982). Hoverflies as primary woodland indicators with reference to Wharncliffe Wood. Sorby Record, 20, 62–67. ↩

  3. Ball, S., & Morris, R. (2014). A review of the scarce and threatened flies of Great Britain. Part 6: Syrphidae. ( No. 9). Species status (pp. 1–130). Peterborough: JNCC. ↩

  4. Falk, S. (1991). A review of the scarce and threatened flies of Great Britain. ( No. 39). Research and Survey in Nature Conservation (pp. 1–194). Peterborough: NCC. ↩

  5. Shirt, D. (Ed.). (1987). Red Data Books: 2. Insects. Peterborough: NCC. ↩