Taxonomy
Cheilosia vicina
Distribution
Species Biology
Preferred environment
Forest/open ground (both coniferous and deciduous forest); clearings and open areas in forest and unimproved grassland from the Fagus/Picea zone up to the Larix zone and beyond, into subalpine grassland, to above 2,000m in the Alps. C. vicina is a species of open areas in the upper levels of montane zone forests and higher altitudes, up into unimproved, calcareous and non-calcareous, subalpine grassland. Larval development is believed to occur in Alchemilla. It is difficult to see why there should be so few Irish records of this species, unless the almost universal overgrazing of potential habitat in Ireland is responsible. C. vicina is widespread and frequent in Scotland.
Adult habitat & habits
Clearings, tracksides etc.; usually flies within 2m of the ground; settles on foliage of ferns and bushes etc.
Flight period
May/July and August at higher altitudes/more northerly latitudes. Larva: undescribed. The morphology of the chorion of the egg is figured by Kuznetzov (1988).
Flowers visited
Caltha, Convolvulus, Galium, Potentilla erecta, Prunus spinosa, Ranunculus,Taraxacum.
Irish reference specimens
In the collections of NMI
Determination
see key to males of European Nigrocheilosia species in the StN Keys volume; Barkalov and Ståhls (1997) figure the male terminalia. Females of this species cannot be satisfactorily distinguished from females of C. nigripes (Mg.) using existing keys. However, they may be distinguished satisfactorily from the shape of the postclypeus, which, in the midline, is less than 11/2x as long as its maximum width in C. nigripes, but nearly 2x as long as wide in C. vicina. This species appears in most recent literature as C. nasutula (Becker). It was established that nasutula of Becker (1894) is a junior synonym of vicina (Zett.) by Lucas et al (1995), who also figure the male terminalia of this species. Barkalov and Ståhls (1997) established that recens (Becker) is also a synonym of this species. The adult insect is illustrated in colour by Bartsch et al (2009b) and Torp (1994).
Distribution
World distribution(GBIF)
Fennoscandia south to the Pyrenees and northern Spain; from Ireland eastwards through northern, central and southern Europe (northern Italy and the former Yugoslavia) into European parts of Russia and Turkey; in Siberia to Tuva.
Irish distribution
Added to the Irish list by Speight (1986a), under the name C. nasutula. There is only one known locality for C. vicina in Ireland, on the flanks of the calcareous massif of Ben Bulben, and the species has to be regarded as endangered here. It would be a candidate for inclusion in any national list of insects requiring protection 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.