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Sphaerophoria philanthus (Meigen, 1822)

Identification

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

Biology

Although the larva has not been found in Europe, a species with the same name is well known in N. America where it is an aphid predator in crops such as Brassica. However, the habits and biology described in American literature do not fit at all well with what is known of this species in Europe, so it is probable that they are not the same species (Speight, 2017)2. In Britain it is found in dry heath and moorland situations and also in heathy rides in conifer plantations. Adults fly low amongst the vegetation where they may visit flowers such as Tormentil Potentilla erecta.

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 frequent in suitable localities in the north and west of Britain. Scarce in southern England and East Anglia where it is confined to the major heathlands. 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. Speight, M. (2017). Species accounts of European Syrphidae ( No. 97). yrph the Net, the database of European Syrphidae (Diptera) (p. 294). Dublin: Syrph the Net publications. Retrieved from https://pollinators.ie/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/StN-2017-Species-Accounts.pdf ↩