Riponnensia splendens (Meigen, 1822)

Identification

Identification difficulty = 2. magnifier_icon camera_filled_icon according to Ball & Morris, 20241

Synonymy

Orthonevra splendens (Meigen) in Stubbs & Falk (1983)2.

Biology

The larva is aquatic, occurring in very shallow, slow moving water with accumulations of woody debris. It is found in marshes and fens (especially close to trees or scrub), springs and seepages in woodland and along farm ditches beside hedgerows. Adults are found amongst vegetation close to water or settled on the foliage of trees and bushes. They frequently visit flowers, especially buttercups Ranunculus sp. and white umbels, but also a variety of others.

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

Widespread and common in the lowlands of the southern half of Britain, scarcer in the north, although extending into eastern and Scotland including the Soey Valley. 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. ↩