Pipiza noctiluca (Linnaeus, 1758)

Identification

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

Biology

The larva is aphidophagous, and has been reared on a variety of ground layer and arboreal species, including Cavariella on white umbels. Adults are usually found resting on vegetation along woodland margins, hedgerows and similar situations, or visiting 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

P. fasciata, P. lugubris, P. noctiluca and P. notata, are justifiably seen as a difficult species complex by many recorders, and are often ignored. Consequently, they must be regarded as under-recorded and probably subject to frequent misidentification. This is much the most frequently recorded member of this group, however, and records are widespread in the southern half of Britain, with scattered records to northern Scotland.

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.