''Melangyna umbellatarum'' is a

Holarctic The Holarctic realm is a biogeographic realm that comprises the majority of habitats found throughout the continents in the Northern Hemisphere. It corresponds to the floristic Boreal Kingdom. It includes both the Nearctic zoogeographical region ...

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

hoverfly Hover flies, also called flower flies or syrphid flies, make up the insect family Syrphidae. As their common name suggests, they are often seen hovering or nectaring at flowers; the adults of many species feed mainly on nectar and pollen, while ...

Description

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Morphology of Diptera Dipteran morphology differs in some significant ways from the broader morphology of insects. The Diptera is a very large and diverse order of mostly small to medium-sized insects. They have prominent compound eyes on a mobile head, and (at most) ...

. Wing length: . This species closely resembles ''Melangyna ericarum'', but the thorax has pale hairs on the disc (many black hairs in ''M. ericarum''). The jowls have only pale hairs below the eyes, whereas ''M. ericarum'' has some black hairs. Tergite 2 has moderately large, yellow side-spots which extend close to or over the side-margins of the tergite (they are widely set back from it in ''M. ericarum''). The legs have distinct clear orange markings (obscure in ''M. ericarum''), and the four anterior femora have few or none of the posterior black bristles present in ''M. ericarum''. For full characters and references, see Bartsch ''et al''. and Bei-Bienko, G.Y. & Steyskal, G.C. The male terminalia are figured by Hippa.

Distribution

Palearctic The Palearctic or Palaearctic is the largest of the eight biogeographic realms of the Earth. It stretches across all of Eurasia north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa. The realm consists of several bioregions: the Euro-Sibe ...

: Fennoscandia south to Iberia, Ireland east through North Europe, Central Europe and South Europe then east into European Russia and Siberia to Kamchatka.

Nearctic The Nearctic realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting the Earth's land surface. The Nearctic realm covers most of North America, including Greenland, Central Florida, and the highlands of Mexico. The parts of North America t ...

: Alaska to Arizona (records may be referable to ''M. fisherii'' (Walton).

Biology

Habitat: streams with ''Salix'', ''Salix'' carr, beside streams and rivers fringed by ''Salix''. Flowers visited include white umbellifers, ''Foeniculum'', ''Euphorbia'', ''Filipendula ulmaria'', ''Sorbus''.de Buck, N. (1990). "Bloembezoek en bestuivingsecologie van Zweefvliegen (Diptera, Syrphidae) in het bijzonder voor België". ''Doc. Trav.'' IRSNB, no. 60, pp. 1-167. The flight period is May to September.Larvae predate

aphid Aphids are small sap-sucking insects and members of the superfamily Aphidoidea. Common names include greenfly and blackfly, although individuals within a species can vary widely in color. The group includes the fluffy white woolly aphids. A t ...

References

Diptera of Europe Syrphinae Syrphini Insects described in 1794 {{Syrphidae-stub