Taxonomy

Meligramma cincta

Distribution

Species Biology

Preferred environment

Forest; deciduous forest (Fagus/Quercus). M. cincta is associated primarily with remaining areas of oak forest in Ireland, but can be found in suburban parks and gardens where scattered, mature oak, sycamore or beech trees are present. It is not a species of conifer plantations (unless stands of deciduous trees are present), hedges or Betula/Salix scrub and in continental Europe is frequently found in association with humid beech forest. Its larvae have been found on beech, lime, oak and sycamore.

Adult habitat & habits

Primarily arboreal, but descends to visit flowers; edges of clearings, tracksides etc.; males hover over tracks or in woodland glades, from 3m upwards.

Flight period

April/June and July/beginning September. Larva: described and figured by Dusek & Laska (1962) from larvae on Fagus; aphid-feeding; egg described by Chandler (1968). Figured in colour (as Melangyna cincta) and separated from larvae of some other Meligramma species in the keys of Rotheray (1994).

Flowers visited

White umbellifers; Acer pseudoplatanus,Crataegus, Ligustrum, Malus sylvestris, Prunus spinosa, Rubus idaeus, Salix, Sambucus nigra, Sorbus aucupariae, Urtica dioica, Viburnus opulus.

Irish reference specimens

In the collections of NMI and UM

Determination

see key in StN keys volume; van der Goot (1981). In recent literature, this syrphid is often treated as a species of Melangyna. The male terminalia are figured in Dusek and Laska (1967) (as Fagisyrphus cinctus) and Vockeroth (1969). The adult insect is illustrated in colour by Kormann (1988), Stubbs and Falk (1983), Torp (1984, 1994) (as Fagisyrphus) and van der Goot (1986).

Distribution

World distribution(GBIF)

None Fennoscandia south to Iberia and the Mediterranean; from Ireland eastwards through much of Europe into European parts of Russia and on to the Crimea and Turkey. According to Vockeroth (1980) N American records of this species are erroneous. This is not a frequent species here, but neither can it be regarded as threatened. There is no obvious reason why it is apparently distributed mostly in northern and eastern Ireland. 

Irish distribution

Recorded as occurring in Ireland in Coe (1953). Irish records of M. cincta are concentrated in the north and east of the island. This is not a frequent species here, but neither can it be regarded as threatened. There is no obvious reason why it is apparently distributed mostly in northern and eastern Ireland. 

Temporal change

Records submitted to Data Centre in 2024

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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.

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