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Platycheirus ambiguus (Fallén, 1817)

Identification

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

Synonymy

Placed in Melanostoma by Coe(1953)2, but more recently placed in the sub-genus Pachysphyria within Platycheirus.

Biology

The larva is unknown. Adults fly early in the season, peaking in late April, and are most often found visiting Blackthorn Prunus spinosa blossom, but also at other flowering shrubs. Both sexes can be found hovering about the flowers where bushes are in sunny and sheltered situations.

Flight period

The following plots show the number of unique records per week excluding those reported to be of immature stages. Phenology plots for Platycheirus ambiguus

Distribution

Most records are from the southern half of England, but it does extend into Wales and Scotland. Distribution map for Platycheirus ambiguus

Trends

The following plots show the Frescalo TFactor vs year and a map of the rescaled frequency (all records) for the species.Trend plots for Platycheirus ambiguus

  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. ↩