Species Biology
Preferred environment
Forest; acidophilus Quercus forest and humid Fagus forest; riverine gallery forest of Fraxinus/Salix. Characteristically an insect of oak woodland in Ireland, where it occurs with tall herb communities along tracksides, lake shores and river banks, or open areas along streams. L. glaucius can also be found in comparable situations in ash woods. Occurring in these situations, L. glaucius exhibits a similar range of habitat preferences as elsewhere in Atlantic parts of Europe. It is not a species of the standard Irish farmland landscape of green fields and hedges and neither does it occur in association with conifer plantations, parks or suburban gardens.
Adult habitat & habits
Beside streams, in clearings, along tracks, etc., usually in humid woodland; to a significant extent arboreal, but spends considerable time on flowers.
Flight period
End May/September, with peak in July/August. Larva: described and figured by Dusek & Laska (1962).
Flowers visited
White umbellifers; Filipendula, Sambucus, Senecio.
Irish reference specimens
In the collections of NMI and UM
Determination
van der Goot (1981). The male terminalia are figured by Dusek and Laska (1967), Hippa (1968b) and Vockeroth (1969). The adult insect is illustrated in colour by Kormann (1988), Stubbs and Falk (1983), Torp (1994) and Bartsch et al (2009a). The male and female can differ somewhat in appearance, and this is well shown by Stubbs and Falk (1983).
Distribution
World distribution(GBIF)
From Fennoscandia south to the Pyrenees; from Ireland east through mountainous parts of central Europe into Turkey and European parts of Russia; throughout Siberia to the tundra zone and on to the Pacific coast (Kuril Islands, Japan). It also ranges widely through continental Europe, except the Mediterranean zone, and does not seem to be regarded as under threat in any part of the continent.
Irish distribution
Recorded as occurring in Ireland in Coe (1953). This insect is widely distributed in Ireland and not threatened here.
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.