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Epistrophe nitidicollis (Meigen, 1822)

Identification

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

Synonymy

Syrphus nitidicollis Meigen in Coe(1953)2.

Biology

The larva feeds on arboreal aphids and has been found on a variety of trees and shrubs including Apple Malus sp., species of Prunus and Elderberry Sambucus nigra. Adults are found in woodland rides and glades where they are usually seen basking on sun-lit foliage, but will visit flowers including white umbels, buttercups Ranunculus sp. and Bramble Rubus 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

Local in the southern half of Britain north to a line between the Mersey and the Humber There are a scatter of Scottish records as far north as the Moray Firth. 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. Coe, R. (1953). Diptera: Syrphidae. Handbooks for the Identification of British Insects, 10(1), 1–98. ↩