Identification difficulty = 3.
according to Ball & Morris, 20241
This species and C. albitarsis were separated by Doczkal (2000)2.
There is currently very little information on the biology of this species. The larva is unknown, although it is probablt associated with buttercups Ranunculus like its close relative, C. albitarsis. Adults are usually found visiting buttercup flowes.
The following plots show the number of unique records per week that were not reported to be of eggs, larvae or pupae.
This is a southern species that mainly occurs south of the Tees and seems to be scarce in northern England. It was added to the Scottish list by Rotheray & Wilkinson (2010)3 who listed some old records from as far north as Edinburgh based on re-examination of specimens in the collections of the National Museum of Scotland.
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.
Ball, S., & Morris, R. (2024). Hoverflies of Britain and Ireland. WILDGuides (3rd ed.). Oxford: Princeton University Press. ↩
Doczkal, D. (2000). Description of Cheilosia ranunculi spec. nov. from Europe, a sibling species of C. albitarsis Meigen (Diptera, Syrphidae). Volucella, 5, 63–78. ↩
Wilkinson, G. (2010). Cheilosia psilophthalma Becker and Brachypalpus laphriformis (Fallén) (Diptera, Syrphidae) new to Scotland. Dipterists Digest (Second Series), 17, 165–167. ↩