Taxonomy
Sphaerophoria philanthus
Distribution
Species Biology
Preferred environment
Open ground; ericaceous heath and moor, oligotrophic Molinia grassland, especially in montane situations, partly-drained valley and blanket bog, dune grassland; also western taiga (Nielsen, 1998). In Ireland, S. philantha and S. fatarum almost invariably occur together, their habitat range overlapping substantially, though S. fatarum is more generally distributed in blanket bog habitats than is S. philantha, and S. philantha can occur in poor fen. In continental Europe, where more distinctly calcareous, unimproved montane/alpine grasslands occur, S. philantha is absent.
Adult habitat & habits
Flies low over ground vegetation.
Flight period
May/September, with peaks in June/July and August. Larva: the larva of this species has not been described from European material. However, if it can be established that the N American species currently regarded as S. philantha is indeed con-specific with its European counterpart, then descriptions and information about larval biology are available from N American literature. That literature is summarised by Barkemeyer (1994). The larvae of the N.American S. philantha are aphid predators on crops like Zea mais and Brassica species - crops whose European distribution does not co-incide at all with the known distribution of S. philantha in Europe. Bagachanova (1990) records rearing S. philantha from larvae collected on Artemisia and Potentilla fruticosa. She also notes that this species overwinters both as larva and puparium.
Flowers visited
Calluna vulgaris, Galium, Hypochoeris, Potentilla erecta, Ranunculus, Salix repens.
Irish reference specimens
In the collections of NMI and UM
Determination
Goeldlin (1989) has shown that, in central Europe, S. philantha is replaced at higher altitudes by a closely similar species, S. boreoalpina (Goeldlin), and that these two species overlap in their altitudinal range. At present, these two species remain very difficult to separate, except by reference to the male terminalia that are figured by Goeldlin (1989), Haarto and Kerppola (2007a) and Bartsch et al (2009a). However, the keys of Haarto and Kerppola (2007a) and Bartsch et al (2009a) purport to provide for separation of the females. S. philantha is illustrated in colour by Torp (1994), Haarto and Kerppola (2007a) and Bartsch et al (2009a). In Fennoscandian populations the pale markings on each tergite (including tergite 2) are evidently normally in the form of an uninterrupted yellow band in the male, whereas in Atlantic Europe it is more usual for each tergite to exhibit a pair of distinctly separated yellow marks. The Fennoscandian form is well shown in the coloured illustrations provided by Bartsch et al (2009a), and the Atlantic form is clearly shown in the coloured figure provided by Ball et al (2002).
Distribution
World distribution(GBIF)
Requires to be reinterpreted following description of S. boreoalpina (see below). At present, this species is only definitely known from parts of northern, Atlantic and central Europe, from northern Norway south to Germany and from Ireland eastwards to Austria. But it probably ranges through northern parts of the Palaearctic outside Europe and occurs also in the Nearctic. It is frequent in other parts of the Atlantic zone also, and in northern Europe, but becomes more localised in the Alps.
Irish distribution
Added to the Irish list by Speight (1973). Additional Irish records are published in Anderson (1988), Nelson (1988) and Speight et al (1975). S. philantha is frequent in Ireland and occurs in most parts of the island, though it is more generally distributed over the midlands and in the west.
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.