Taxonomy
Platycheirus scutatus
Distribution
Species Biology
Preferred environment
Forest; most types of deciduous forest, especially scrub woodland; anthropophilic, occurring also along field hedges, in fruit and olive orchards, in suburban gardens and parks and in young conifer plantations. In Ireland, P. scutatus is an insect of gardens, hedges, scrub and woodland edge. It is a markedly anthropophilic insect, able to survive in the standard farmland landscape of green fields and hedges, but hardly occurs there without the hedges. In general, P. scutatus is a species of deciduous forests, especially at the scrub and sapling stage of development. It can also be found in open areas within conifer plantation.
Adult habitat & habits
Clearings, tracksides, hedges etc.; flies up to 3m from ground, the males hovering at from 1 - 3m, beside hedges, in woodland glades etc.
Flight period
April/October, with peaks in June and August and occasional specimens on into November. Larva: described and figured by Bhatia (1939), who also describes the egg; the larva is illustrated in colour by Rotheray (1994); larval biology described by Dusek & Laska (1974); aphid feeding, on low-growing plants, bushes, shrubs and small trees.
Flowers visited
White umbellifers; Achillea millefolium, Aster, Berberis, Campanula rapunculoides, Euphorbia, Geranium robertianum, Leontodon, Ranunculus, Rosa, Salix repens, Silene dioica, Stellaria, Taraxacum,Tripleurospermum inodorum.
Irish reference specimens
In the collections of NMI and UM
Determination
Doczkal et al (2002) provide a key distinguishing the male of this species from males of the other European species of the scutatus group, P.aurolateralis, P. speighti and P. splendidus. The female of this species cannot at present be separated from the other species of this group. A further potential complication is P. atlasi (Kassebeer), recently described from N Africa (Kassebeer, 1998), which might occur in Mediterranean parts of Europe. The general appearance of P. scutatus is shown by coloured illustrations in Stubbs and Falk (1983), Torp (1984, 1994), van der Goot (1986) and Bartsch et al (2009a). All four European scutatus group species are very similar to each other and at localities where they occur may be found together in flight in the field. The key provided by Bartsch et al (2009a) can be used to identify this species where P. speighti does not occur.
Distribution
World distribution(GBIF)
Requires review due to potential for confusion of this species with the recently-described scutatus group species, but supposedly widespread, from Iceland, the Faroes (Jensen, 2001) and Fennoscandia south to Iberia and the Mediterranean; from Ireland eastwards through northern, central and southern Europe (Italy, the former Yugoslavia, Greece) into Turkey and European parts of Russia; Afghanistan; through Siberia to the Pacific coast (Sakhalin Is., Japan); in N America from Alaska south to Colorado. P. scutatus is common and widely distributed in both Ireland and much of Europe, from central Scandinavia south to the Mediterranean. It is a Holarctic species, ranging through Asiatic parts of the Palaearctic to the Pacific and occurring over much of North America.
Irish distribution
Recorded as occurring in Ireland in Coe (1953). Subsequent to the description of the closely-related P. splendidus (Rotheray, 1998) and P. aurolateralis (Stubbs, 2002), checking of Irish material shows that it is P. scutatus that is generally distributed in 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.