Species details

Sphaerophoria potentillae Claussen, 1984

Biology

Larva unknown. Occurs in wet, unimproved grassland where adults have been found visiting Achillea sp., Tormentil Potentilla erecta and buttercups Ranunculus sp.

Distribution

This species was added to the British list from wet Culm grasslands in North Devon by Stubbs (1989). It has been recorded from a handful of sites in the immediate vicinity of the original discovery and a site on Bodmin Moor, Cornwall in 2001. The occurrence of this species in Britain was predicted by Speight (1988), who illustrates the male genitalia. It was originally described from a series of bogs in northern Germany and has so far only been found in Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, northern France and Britain (Speight, 2010), but there are few records.

Status

VULNERABLE - Ball & Morris, 2010.