Taxonomy
Platycheirus clypeatus
Distribution
Species Biology
Preferred environment
Open ground/wetland; humid grassland and fen, plus the margins of ponds, streams, bogs and lakes; to some extent anthropophilic, occurring also along wet ditches and canals. In Ireland, P. clypeatus is frequent in fen vegetation, wherever it occurs. This syrphid can also be abundant in humid, unimproved grassland, and can persist where there is occasional use of fertiliser to improve the sward. But where grassland is subject to a regime of ploughing, re-seeding and fertilisation (i.e. in intensive grassland) P. clypeatus is normally absent. Other closely-related wetland Platycheirus species normally occur together with P. clypeatus, but in drier sites P. clypeatus is the only species of this group to be found. Essentially, P. clypeatus may be found in humid grassland not subject to flooding, while the others are not. This is another species liable to suffer a diminution in frequency consequent upon intensification of farming activities and it is absent from much of the farmed landscape of green fields and hedges. For survival in these situations it is dependent upon farm infrastructural elements of undrained wet patches, margins of wet ditches and neglected corners of grassland.
Adult habitat & habits
Flies among the dense, tall vegetation of fens, fen meadows and waterside situations, e.g. Cyperaceae, Juncus.
Flight period
April/September. Larva: supposedly described and figured by Dixon (1960). Dziock Chandler (1968).
Flowers visited
Cyperaceae; Graminae; white Umbelliferae; Caltha, Luzula, Plantago, Polygonum cuspidatum, Ranunculus, Salix, Senecio jacobaea, Vaccinium myrtillus.
Irish reference specimens
In the collections of NMI and UM
Determination
Speight and Goeldlin (1990). Males of this species from the northern edge of its range may be noticeably melanic and Icelandic specimens can be virtually without pale abdominal markings and with predominantly blackish femora. However, in such specimens the anterolateral surface of the fore femora remains pale, distinguishing them from P. angustipes Goeldlin (which, in any case, has different features on the ventral surface of the fore basitarsus). Females of this species are extremely difficult to separate from females of P. occultus (Goeldlin, Maibach and Speight), P. immarginatus (Zett.) and P. ramsarensis (Goeldlin, Maibach and Speight). In both sexes P. clypeatus is extremely difficult to separate from P. hyperboreus (Staeger). The adult insect is illustrated in colour by Stubbs and Falk (1983), Torp (1984, 1994) and van der Goot (1986). The male terminalia are figured by Goeldlin et al (1990).
Distribution
World distribution(GBIF)
From Iceland, the Faroes (Jensen, 2001) and Fennoscandia south to Iberia and the Mediterranean; from Ireland eastwards through most of Europe into Turkey and European parts of Russia; from the Urals to central Siberia; in N America from Alaska to Ontario and south to California. P. clypeatus is common and widely distributed in both Ireland and much of Europe, from northern Norway south to central France. Further south it becomes more localised. It ranges widely outside Europe in Asiatic parts of the Palaearctic and in the Nearctic.
Irish distribution
Recorded as occurring in Ireland in Coe (1953), but at that time this species was confused with various other, closely related species. The presence of P. clypeatus in Ireland was confirmed by Speight and Goeldlin (1990).
Temporal change
Records submitted to Data Centre in 2025
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References
Publications
Speight, M. C. D. (2008) Database of Irish Syrphidae
(Diptera). Irish Wildlife Manuals, No. 36. National Parks and Wildlife Service.
Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Dublin, Ireland.
Speight, M.C.D. (2014) Species accounts of European
Syrphidae (Diptera), 2014. Syrph the Net, the database of European Syrphidae,
vol. 78, 321 pp., Syrph the Net publications, Dublin.