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Sphaerophoria interrupta (Fabricius, 1805)

Identification

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

Synonymy

Sphaerophoria menthastri (Linnaeus) sensu Vockeroth in Stubbs & Falk (1983)2.

Biology

The larva feeds on aphids and other small, soft-bodied Homoptera in the ground layer, and have been found with aphids on White Campion Silene dioica and Common Mouse-ear Cerastium fontanum ssp. holosteoides (Stubbs, 1996)3. It is typically found in open, wet or moist grassland such as the edges of fen, coastal dunes, and unimproved wet meadows, but it also occurs in damp grassy woodland clearings. Occasionally recorded from chalk grassland. Adults fly low amongst the vegetation and visit a wide range of flowers.

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

After S. scripta, this is the commonest member of the genus. It is distributed into northern Scotland and is more likely to be encountered in northern areas than S. scripta. Its distribution is patchy, however, with much lower occurrence in eastern England and areas such as mid-Wales and the southern highlands of Scotland. 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. ↩

  3. Stubbs, A. (1996). British Hoverflies. Second (revised and enlarged) supplement. Reading: BENHS. ↩