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Pipizella viduata (Linnaeus, 1758)

Identification

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

Synonymy

Pipizella varipes (Meigen) in Stubbs & Falk (1983)2.

Biology

The larva is associated with ant-attended, root-feeding aphids on white umbels (e.g. Anauraphis subterranea attended by Lasius niger on the roots of Wild Parsnip Pastinaca sativa). Generally found by sweeping dry grassland (including calcareous and coastal grassland), dry heathland and woodland rides, or seen visiting low flowers, especially bedstraws Galium sp., Wild Parsnip and other white umbels. Adults will bask on sun-lit leaves, but generally stay close to the ground.

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

A widespread and common species found in suitable localities throughout Britain, although most frequent in the southern lowlands. 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. Stubbs, A., & Falk, S. (1983). British Hoverflies: An Illustrated Identification Guide (1st ed.). Reading: BENHS. ↩