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Cheilosia urbana (Meigen, 1822)

Identification

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

Synonymy

Cheilosia praecox (Zetterstedt, 1843). Cheilosia globulipes Becker was considered as a doubtfully distinct species by Stubbs & Falk (1983)2.

Biology

Females oviposit on leaf axils of Mouse-ear Hawkweed Hieracium pilosella. Upon hatching, C. urbana larvae migrate to the soil and feed externally on the roots (Grosskopf, 2005)3. Mature larvae pupate in the soil close to the surface. Adults are usually seen visiting flowers such as sallow Salix sp. catkins, early in the spring in woodland edges (deciduous and coniferous), scrub and damp grassland. Males tend to hover in sheltered, sunny locations whilst females can be found hovering over short turf with Cats Ear Hypochoeris radicata, hawkbits Leontodon sp. and hawkweeds Hieracium sp.

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

Distribution

Although generally scarce, this species is widespread in Wales and England north to the Humber, and there are recent records from Cumbria and Northumberland and a scatter of records from Scotland. It is possibly missed by some recorders because of its early flight period. 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., & Falk, S. (1983). British Hoverflies: An Illustrated Identification Guide (1st ed.). Reading: BENHS. ↩

  3. Grosskopf, G. (2005). Biology and life history of Cheilosia urbana (Meigen) and Cheilosia psilophthalma (Becker), two sympatric hoverflies approved for the biological control of hawkweeds (Hieracium spp.) in New Zealand. Biological Control, 35(2), 142–154. ↩