Species Biology
Preferred environment
Wetland/forest; fen, bog and boggy stream margins within acidophilous Quercus forest, Salix carr, swamp Betula/Pinus forest and moor. The habitat range of this species in Ireland is as elsewhere, except that extensive planting of conifers in areas which would naturally be humid deciduous forest allows S. lappona to sometimes be found in association with open areas along streams in conifer plantations here. General land surface drainage does not favour this insect and it is absent from the standard farmland landscape of green fields and hedges. Neither is it to be found in suburban gardens or coastal habitat types. It is thus largely an anthropophobic species. While it can occur in forested situations, it is most frequently met with in wetlands and moorland.
Adult habitat & habits
Clearings, tracksides, streamsides; flies at up to 3m from the ground.
Flight period
May/September, with peak in May/June (June/July at higher altitudes/more northerly latitudes). Larva: described and figured by Hartley (1961) and illustrated in colour (from a preserved specimen) by Rotheray (1994); aquatic.
Flowers visited
Caltha, Cardamine, Cirsium, Crataegus, Ligustrum, Ranunculus, Rubus fruticosus, Sorbus aucuparia, Taraxacum, Vaccinium myrtillus.
Irish reference specimens
In the collections of NMI and UM
Determination
See key provided in StN Keys volume. The adult insect is illustrated in colour by Bartsch et al (2009b), Kormann (1988), Stubbs and Falk (1983), Torp (1984, 1994) and van der Goot (1986). Nielsen and Vockeroth (2000) provide a figure of the male terminalia.
Distribution
World distribution(GBIF)
From Iceland, Fennoscandia and the Faroes (Jensen, 2001) south to the Pyrenees; from Ireland eastwards through northern, central and southern Europe (northern Italy, the former Yugoslavia) into European parts of Russia; through Siberia to the Pacific coast (Sakhalin Is.). It ranges widely in northern Europe, but is more restricted to mountainous country further south. Outside Europe its range extends through Siberia to the Pacific.
Irish distribution
Recorded as occurring in Ireland in Coe (1953). S. lappona is widespread and frequent 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.