Taxonomy
Sphegina sibirica
Distribution
Species Biology
Preferred environment
Forest; Picea forest and plantations. In Ireland recorded from a plantation of mature Picea and Pinus, most of which had been brought down by gales during the previous two years, the cut off stumps and their attached root plates then being left where they fell (together with some of the trunks), creating a considerable resource of recently-dead timber. In continental Europe, S. sibirica is a species of mature spruce (Picea) forests and has spread rapidly through spruce plantations in western Europe during the latter part of the 20th century. Its arrival in Ireland was expected (Speight, 2004). Its flight season in Ireland is unusual, being later than in adjacent parts of Europe. At the Irish locality specimens were seen on the wing from 13 July to 8 August.
Adult habitat & habits
In flight along streams and hovering round fresh-cut logs of Picea.
Flight period
May/June and July at higher altitudes/more northerly latitudes. Larva: not described; females have been seen ovipositing on a cut Picea trunk lying across a stream, oviposition occurring toward the underside of the log, where it reached the stream-bank.
Flowers visited
Umbellifers, Crataegus, Mentha aquatica, Photinia, Potentilla, Ranunculus, Sambucus, Sorbus, Viburnum opulus.
Irish reference specimens
In the collections of NMI
Determination
See Key to males provided in StN Keys volume; T hompson & Torp (1986), Bartsch et al (2009b). S sibirica has been placed in a separate sub-genus by most recent authors, on the basis that it lacks a second abdominal sternite. However, although this sclerite is not visible in many specimens of S. sibirica it is recognisable, although poorly sclerotised, in others, a fact which requires to be born in mind when using the keys in van der Goot (1981) and Thompson & Torp (1986). This species varies from all black (with an entirely black face) to entirely orange (with a yellow/orange face), with a range of intermediates between the two. Photographs of the orange and black forms are shown in Bartsch et al (2009b). In some intermediates there is a general infuscation of the body surface, with ill-defined darker patches, in others a pattern of sharply black patches is found on an otherwise orange insect. The male terminalia are figured by Thompson and Torp (1986). The adult male is illustrated in colour by Haarto & Kerppola (2007).
Distribution
World distribution(GBIF)
From northern Fennoscandia south to central France; from Ireland (where it was first recorded in 2008) eastwards through central Europe and European parts of Russia to the Caucasus and into Siberia as far as Kamchatka and Khabarovsk. S. sibirica has spread rapidly through western Europe during the last quarter of the 20th century.
Irish distribution
Added to the Irish list by Speight (2008b). At present known only from one Co. Dublin locality, but this is almost certainly a species that has arrived in Ireland only recently that, given its habitat, can be expected to spread to other parts of the island quite rapidly, given the ubiquity of spruce in Irish commercial forestry plantations, and judging from its rate of expansion elsewhere in Europe.
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.