''Eristalinus sepulchralis'' is a

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

an species of

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 ...

. The species are

brown Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing or painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors orange and black. In the RGB color model use ...

ish-

white White is the lightness, lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully diffuse reflection, reflect and scattering, scatter all the ...

from a close up, and look like a

wasp A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. Th ...

. From a distance though, they are

yellow Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In ...

ish-

black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ha ...

coloured, and look like a

bumble bee A bumblebee (or bumble bee, bumble-bee, or humble-bee) is any of over 250 species in the genus ''Bombus'', part of Apidae, one of the bee families. This genus is the only extant group in the tribe Bombini, though a few extinct related genera ...

. The species can be found throughout Europe in the

Baltic states The Baltic states, et, Balti riigid or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term, which currently is used to group three countries: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, ...

, North Europe,

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Southern Southern may refer to: Businesses * China Southern Airlines, airline based in Guangzhou, China * Southern Airways, defunct US airline * Southern Air, air cargo transportation company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, US * Southern Airways Express, M ...

and

Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...

and across the

Palaearctic 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-Si ...

to Kamchatka, Japan, China and India.

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bo ...

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croa ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

, and the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

Technical Description

External images
For terms see

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 6 ·5–8 mm. Eyes patterned with conspicuous black spots and hairy all over in both sexes. Tergites black with green or other reflections. Tergites 2 and 3 with a dull spot. Male eyes well separated on frons. Thoracic dorsum with five grey stripes. The male genitalia and larva are figured by Pérez-Bañón et al. (2003). The larva is figured by Hartley (1961)

Biology

Habitat is wetland, fen, river and pond margins. Anthropophilic and occurring where stock is pastured, along polluted ditches and in the vicinity of slurry pits. Flowers visited include white umbellifers, ''Achillea millefolium'', ''Allium'', ''Armeria maritima'', ''Bellis perennis'', ''Bidens cernua'', ''Caltha'', ''Cochlearia danica'', ''Crataegus'', ''Euphorbia'', ''Galium'', ''Leontodon'', ''Origanum vulgare'', ''Potentilla erecta'', ''Ranunculus'', ''Rosa'', ''Rubus fruticosus'', ''Salix'', ''Senecio jacobaea'', ''Solidago virgaurea'', ''Sorbus aucuparia'', ''Taraxacum'', ''Tussilago'', ''Valeriana dioica''.de Buck, N. (1990) Bloembezoek en bestuivingsecologie van Zweefvliegen (Diptera, Syrphidae) in het bijzonder voor België. ''Doc.Trav.'' IRSNB, no.60, 1-167. The flight period is mid-April to September (March to October in southern Europe). The larvae are associated with rotting vegetation in a ponds and small water bodies rich in nutrients.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eristalinus Sepulchralis Diptera of Europe Eristalinae Flies described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus