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Platycheirus splendidus Rotheray, 1998

Identification

Identification difficulty = 4. microscope_icon camera_icon_question according to Ball & Morris, 20241

Synonymy

Sepatayed from Platycheirus scutats by Rotheray (1998)2.

Biology

Bred from larvae collected from leaf-curl galls of Schizoneura ulmi on Wych Elm Ulmus glabra and also Brachycaudus sp. on White Campion Silene dioica. Adults closely resemble P. scutatus with which it was previously confused. Rotheray (1998)2 found that larvae enter diapause (unlike P. scutatus) not forming a puparium until the following spring and the few records of adults available so far support this, suggesting it has a short flight period early in the season.

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 splendidus

Distribution

Widely distributed across mainland Britain, including much of Scotland. The patchy distribution suggests that only a proportion of recorders make an effort to separate this species from the commoner P. scutatus. Distribution map for Platycheirus splendidus

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 splendidus

  1. Ball, S., & Morris, R. (2024). Hoverflies of Britain and Ireland. WILDGuides (3rd ed.). Oxford: Princeton University Press. ↩

  2. Rotheray, G. (1998). Platycheirus splendidus sp. n. from Britain formerly confused with Platycheirus scutatus (Diptera: Syrphidae). Entomologist’s Gazette, 49, 271–276. ↩ ↩