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Melangyna arctica (Zetterstedt, 1838)

Identification

Identification difficulty = 4. microscope_icon camera_icon_cross according to Ball & Morris, 20241

Synonymy

Syrphus arcticus Zetterstedt in Coe(1953)2.

Biology

The larva is aphidophagous, appearing to have a clear preference for Pterocallis ulnii on Alder Alnus glutinosa. Adults usually fly around foliage and flowers in trees, but can also be found visiting flowers at ground level. They usually occur in or near woodland, both coniferous and deciduous.

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 mainly a northern species with most records from Scotland and northern England. There are scattered records throughout Britain except for the East Midlands and south-east England. Any records from these areas must be extremely carefully scrutinised. Many of the losses appear to be from the southern parts of its range. 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. ↩