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Cheilosia illustrata (Harris, 1780)

Identification

Identification difficulty = 1. according to Ball & Morris, 2024¹

Biology

The larva tunnels the large rootstocks of Hogweed Heracleum sphondylium. Adults are most commonly found at Hogweed flowers and other white umbels along glades, tracksides, hedges, etc. and are a typical component of the mid-summer fauna of Hogweed flowers. This species appears to be emerging much earlier than it used to.

Flight period

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

Distribution

A very common species throughout Britain wherever white umbels such as Hogweed and Wild Angelica Angelica sylvestris grow. Records are much more thinly distributed in upland areas and data suggest that this species favours localities below an altitude of 200 metres.

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.