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Melangyna lasiophthalma (Zetterstedt, 1843)

Identification

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

Synonymy

Syrphus lasiophthalmus Zetterstedt in Coe(1953)2.

Biology

The larva is aphidophagous. This is a characteristic species of woods, both deciduous and coniferous, in the early spring, where they visit the flowers of trees, such as sallows Salix sp., and ground layer species, like yellow composites, buttercups Ranunculus and Wild Garlic Allium ursinum. Males hover in clearings and over tracks. Both sexes can be found settled on sun-lit tree trunks and dry leaves.

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

Widely distributed in well-wooded areas throughout Britain. Often abundant where it occurs. 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. ↩