Species details

Epistrophe flava Doczkal & Schmid, 1994

Nomenclature

Added to the British list in 2022 by Roger Morris on the basis of a specimen from Kent taken in 1988. The species is not easy to distinguish from other banded species of Epistrophe which have orange antennae. It is included in the keys in "Hoverflies of Northwest Europe" (van Veen, 2014).

Biology

The larvae are aphidophagous and have been reported from a variety of plants including aphid galls on Apple, and from Chicory, thistles and Elderberry (Speight, 2014).

Distribution

Added to the British list on the basis of a single male specimen taken at Dungeness, Kent on 13/06/1988. The specimen had remained in Roger Morris' collection and was reexamined. Elsewhere in Europe, it is recorded from Scandinavia to Spain and Italy with a widespread, but patchy distribution.