State of the Syrphs - 1-Nov-2023

Hello all!

It's clear now that we are finally in identifying season! For the first time since the project started the number of UK hoverfly observations needing ID has actually fallen (albeit only by 1%).

As we move into the long dark evenings and do a bit more identifying etc, do please feel free to use the comments section of these articles to share your own plans, experiences or questions!

Identification

Let's break down this slightly reduced Needs ID pile. Both Syrphinae and Eristalinae are down about 1%, but this masks a bigger (3%) fall in Syrphini, partly cancelled out by rises in Bacchini and Melanostomini. 26 genera are down, compared to only 13 up (and 31 unmoved), which is great. The biggest fallers (with >50obs) are Sphaerophoria (-24%), Dasysyrphus (-20%), Rhingia (-17%), Meliscaeva (-14%), and Parhelophilus (-9%). The fall in Sphaerophoria is particularly pleasing - the other really big genera moved as follows: Eristalis (-1%), Eupeodes (0%) and Syrphus (+4%).

If you want to try your hand at identification check out the resources page, just doing a few will get you started, feel free to tag me or another of the recent top identifiers if you want your ID checked or have another question - you can do this by putting @ in front of the username e.g. @matthewvosper. You might want to consider adopting one simple genus (learning all 280ish UK hoverfly species is a rather daunting task), or using the Syrphus and Sphaerophoria guides in this project. Alternatively you could try moving observations that are currently identified only as 'family Syrphidae' to whatever lower level you feel comfortable with. So many options :) - there are handy URLs here to find the observations that still need annotations or IDs. I'm continuing to attack Sphaerophoria this month, feel free to join me!

Annoation

On the annotatons front, we are continuing to make a huge difference. Well done everyone involved!

Adding annotations to observations is a great way to get started contributing to iNat and the UK recording scheme. Read the annotations and sexing hoverflies articles if you think you might like to chip in!

All the best to everyone.

(All data compiled on 31-Oct-23)

Posted on November 1, 2023 12:00 AM by matthewvosper