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Pelecocera tricincta Meigen, 1822

Identification

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

Biology

This is a heathland species that favours wetter heaths with Cross-leaved Heath Erica tetralix. The larva is unknown. Adults are flower visitors and can be found on yellow, low-growing flowers such as Tormentil Potentilla erecta, Cats-ear Hypochoeris radicata, hawkbits Leontodon sp. and buttercups Ranunculus sp. along heathland rides and heath verge. On occasions, it can occur in numbers, but records more frequently refer to single individuals.

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

Status

Lower Risk (Nationally scarce) - Ball & Morris, 20142. Rare (RDB3) - Falk, 19913 and Shirt, 19874.

Distribution

This is a southern species that is restricted to the heathlands of Devon, Dorset, Isle of Wight, South Hampshire, North Hampshire, West Gloucestershire, Surrey and East Sussex. Records seem to have become more frequent since 2000. 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. Ball, S., & Morris, R. (2014). A review of the scarce and threatened flies of Great Britain. Part 6: Syrphidae. ( No. 9). Species status (pp. 1–130). Peterborough: JNCC. ↩

  3. Falk, S. (1991). A review of the scarce and threatened flies of Great Britain. ( No. 39). Research and Survey in Nature Conservation (pp. 1–194). Peterborough: NCC. ↩

  4. Shirt, D. (Ed.). (1987). Red Data Books: 2. Insects. Peterborough: NCC. ↩