Chrysotoxum bicinctum (Linnaeus, 1758)

Identification

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

Biology

This genus is thought to be associated with ants, with larvae feeding on ant-attended root aphids, although a larva of this species has been reared in the laboratory on pea aphids. Adults are usually found in grassy places, often on the edges of woodland or scrub or along hedgerows where they visit a wide range of flowers.

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

Widely distributed throughout Britain but usually encountered in small numbers. It is most widely distributed south of a line between the Ribble and Tees Estuaries whilst more northerly records tend to occur in coastal and lowland situations.

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.