Next

"

Eristalinus aeneus (Scopoli, 1763)

Identification

Identification difficulty = 2. magnifier_icon camera_filled_icon according to Ball & Morris, 20241

Synonymy

Eristalis aeneus Scopoli in Coe(1953)2.

Biology

This is a coastal species in Britain. The larva is of the 'long-tailed', aquatic type, and lives in brackish pools and rock-pools where decaying seaweed accumulates. Adults are often found basking on bare areas or rocks on paths and banks, or visiting flowers such as Ragwort Senecio, within close proximity of the coast. It overwinters as an adult.

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

This is predominantly a coastal species and it seems very likely that some inland records are misidentifications. However, it is not confined to coastal areas in most of its European range, so it is possible that, as the climate warms, its British distribution may change. Most records are from southern regions, especially from the coastal marshes in Suffolk, Essex and Kent and from the Sussex, Hampshire and Dorset coasts. It occurs north to Sutherland. 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. ↩