Meliscaeva cinctella

Late Frühlingsschwebfliege ( Meliscaeva cinctella )

The Late Frühlingsschwebfliege or Common Soft - hoverfly ( Meliscaeva cinctella ) is a fly from the family of hoverflies (Syrphidae ).

Features

The flies can reach a length 7-11 mm and have a long and lean physique. The forehead of the male is colored in yellow above the sensor itself is a semicircular black spot. In the females the forehead at the apex is completely black, center it is pollinated yellow. The antennae are colored reddish yellow. In the male, the second and third term is darkened on the top, the third member of the female is on the upper side black.

The antennae bristle ( arista ) is covered with fine hair, the dark, shining mesonotum is brown hairy. The yellow tag ( scutellum ) wears long black hair. The slightly brownish wings are transparent, their Subcostalader and the pterostigma are brown. The halteres are reddish yellow. The abdomen has parallel side edges is colored matte black and bears on each segment a centrally sinuate, broad yellow band, which is split in the middle black on the second abdominal segment. It is the kind with the slightly smaller Fagisyrphus cinctus confused, but this has yellow hair on the scutellum and has a shorter abdomen.

Occurrence

The animals are found in the Holarctic and Oriental. You are in Central Europe and frequently occur in almost all habitats from the plains to high positions before, but are most common near the forest. They fly from April to September or early October, with the peak of the flight time is in July and August.

Way of life

The adults are flower visitors to a wide variety of flowers, but preferred to keep on umbelliferous plants. The larvae live zoophag of aphids.

Swell

• Gerald Bothe: hoverflies. German youth club for nature observation, Hamburg 1996.
• Joachim & Hiroko main: flies and mosquitoes: observation of life. Nature -Verlag, Augsburg 1998, ISBN 3-89440-278-4.