Identification difficulty = 4.
according to Ball & Morris, 2024[^HKB6B3NI]
Sepatayed from Platycheirus scutats by Rotheray (1998)[^Q8VGIMFU].
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)[^Q8VGIMFU] 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.
The following plots show the number of unique records per week that were not reported to be of eggs, larvae or pupae.
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.
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.