Taxonomy
Sphegina elegans
Distribution
Species Biology
Preferred environment
Humid deciduous forest (Fagus and Quercus). Although known from more-or-less the same range of deciduous forest habitat types as S. clunipes, S. elegans is markedly less frequently encountered, and the ecological reasons for this are obscure. S. elegans presumably has more specialised ecological requirements than S. clunipes, since the latter species occurs regularly in both deciduous and coniferous forests, whereas S. elegans occurs only in deciduous forest. It is absent from conifer plantations, the farmland landscape of green fields and hedges, orchards and gardens.
Adult habitat & habits
Usually flies in partial shade and near water, beside streams etc.; flies at from ground level up to 3m.
Flight period
End May/July and August/September, plus April in southern Europe. Larva: described and figured by Hartley (1961), who found larvae in a sap run on the trunk of a living Ulmus. However, whether the sap-run microhabitat is typical or unusual for this species is uncertain. S. elegans has also been collected from emergence traps located in the bottom of a ditch containing only bare clay and small woody debris from overhanging trees (Fagus), and channelling a winter-flowing temporary stream.
Flowers visited
White umbellifers; Crataegus, Ranunculus, Sanicula, Stachys, Valeriana, Viburnum opulus.
Irish reference specimens
In the collections of NMI and UM
Determination
See Key to males provided in StN Keys volume and Thompson & Torp (1986), who figure the male terminalia. The adult insect is illustrated in colour, by Bartsch et al (2009b), Torp (1984, 1994) and van der Goot (1986).
Distribution
World distribution(GBIF)
From Fennoscandia south to the Pyrenees and Spain; from Ireland eastwards through central and southern Europe (northern Italy, the former Yugoslavia, northern Greece) into European parts of Russia to the Caucasus mountains. Also known from Samos island, in the Mediterranean near the coast of Turkey. It is essentially endemic to Europe, but with a wide and scattered distribution in the continent, southwards from the southern tip of Scandinavia.
Irish distribution
Recorded as occurring in Ireland in Coe (1953), wherein it is referred to under the name S. kimakowiczi (Strobl). The majority of Irish records of this species are from the south and east of the island, though there are scattered records from elsewhere. S. elegans is not a frequently encountered insect in Ireland, but neither can it be regarded as threatened here.
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.