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Eristalis horticola (De Geer, 1776)

Identification

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

Synonymy

Eristalis lineata (Harris, 1776) in a number of European works.

Biology

The larva is of the 'long-tailed', aquatic type, in most types of wetland, but especially pond and stream margins, especially wooded streams. Adults are usually found visiting flowers, especially white umbels, often in the vicinity of trees or scrub. They sometimes visit garden 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

Widespread and frequent throughout Britain but seemingly less common in parts of eastern England. Field experience suggests that it is more abundant in northern and western England and Scotland. Care is needed in separation from some other Eristalis species, especially E. nemorum and E. rupium.

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.