David Element
Wildlife Photography and Digital Video Images
Flies 66 – Common Snout Hoverflies
COMMON SNOUT HOVERFLY Rhingia campestris (m)
COMMON SNOUT HOVERFLY Rhingia campestris (m)
COMMON SNOUT HOVERFLY Rhingia campestris (m)
COMMON SNOUT HOVERFLY Rhingia campestris (f)
COMMON SNOUT HOVERFLY Rhingia campestris (f)
·
The Common Snout
Hoverfly Rhingia campestris belongs
to a small genus containing two species in the UK, both of which are most
easily identified by the extended, eponymous snout and foldable mouthparts. The
Grey-backed Snout Hoverfly R. rostratum (illustrated elsewhere on this web site) possesses a shorter snout and
a grey thorax, and the margins of the abdomen lack the black markings, variable
in their intensity, present on R.
campestris. It also has a later flight season and
appears to have an association with Common Ivy Hedera helix in
the autumn. Formerly, this species was uncommon, but it has spread more widely
during the last 20 years, and it is now much easier to find in the appropriated
habitats. Both flies favour sunlit woodland margins, and R. campestris males
(this might apply to both species) may be seen hovering in sunbeams. The
mouthparts of Common Snout Hoverflies extend to roughly half the length of
their own bodies, meaning that they can reach deeply situated nectar sources inaccessible
to most other pollinators – including Red Campion Silene dioica flowers,
as illustrated above. The larvae of both species are said to be coprophagic
(unusual in hoverflies), but as is often the case with flies, not a great deal
is known about this stage of the life-history, as the behaviour is difficult to
observe in the field. The adults may be found at some distance from any obvious
source of cow or deer dung.
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