Late spring hover fly
| Late spring hover fly | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Late spring hover fly ( Meliscaeva cinctella ) |
||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Meliscaeva cinctella | ||||||||||||
| ( Zetterstedt , 1843) |
The late spring hover fly or common tender hover fly ( Meliscaeva cinctella ) is a fly from the family of hover flies (Syrphidae).
features
The flies reach a length of 7 to 11 millimeters and have a long and slender body. The forehead of the males is colored yellow, above the antennae there is a semicircular black spot. In females, the forehead is completely black at the vertex, in the middle it is dusted yellow. The antennae are colored red-yellow. In the male, the second and third link on the upper side is darkened, the third link in the female is black on top.
The antenna bristle (arista) is finely haired, the dark, shiny mesonotum is hairy brown. The yellow scutellum has long black hair. The slightly brownish colored wings are transparent, their subcostal arteries and the pterostigma are brown. The holders are red-yellow. The abdomen has parallel side edges, is matt black in color and has a broad yellow band on each segment, which is creased in the middle and divided black in the middle on the second segment of the abdomen. One can confuse the species with the somewhat smaller Fagisyrphus cinctus , but this has yellow hair on the label and has a shorter abdomen.
Occurrence
The animals are found in the Holarctic and Oriental Ocean. They are common in Central Europe and occur in almost all biotopes from the lowlands to high altitudes, but are most common near forests. They fly from April to September or the beginning of October, with the peak of the flight time being in July and August.
Way of life
The adults are flower visitors on various flowers, but prefer to stay on umbellifers . The larvae live zoophag on aphids .
swell
- Gerald Bothe: Hoverflies. German Youth Association for Nature Observation, Hamburg 1996.
- Joachim Haupt, Hiroko Haupt: Flies and mosquitoes: observation, way of life. Naturbuch-Verlag, Augsburg 1998, ISBN 3-89440-278-4 .
