State of the Syrphs - 1-Mar-2024

Hello Everyone!

A happy Spring to you all!

What to look out for:

All of the What to look out for articles are now available on the project journal, including the March edition. This is the month hoverflies just start to pick up. One early riser, Melangyna quadrimaculata is best seen this month, and the article suggests how to give yourself the best chance of seeing it, and photographing it identifiably. There are a few other species getting going too :)

Annotations

A little piece of information I picked up recently, courtesy of @rkl: When a record becomes research grade and is sent to the hoverfly recording scheme subsequent changes made in iNaturalist are still sent through until the record is confirmed in the iRecord system used by HRS. Only once HRS have confirmed the record do changes made in iNat have no further effect. So do not despair if you find a new record that is already research grade but hasn't been annotated! Add the sex and life stage as quick as you can, and you might still be in time. (This includes if the ID is wrong - add a correcting ID and the observation will be withdrawn from iRecord until it becomes research grade again).

Anyway, we've just had our best ever month for keeping up with sex annotations, bravo! Just a smidge short of 90%. And life stage annotations remain very high.

Also, two thirds of all UK hoverfly observations now have a sex annotation.

Identifications

Last month I suggested that we aim to get the total number of observations needing ID down to 8500 (half of last year's peak), and we're not doing too badly towards that. March is really the last month of the off-season (although things are just starting to pick up). With a bit of a push we might just make it!

Remember the handy URLs here that can help you find what you want to identify and annotate, and keep up with new observations.

Here's the usual breakdown of the NeedsID pile by tribe, and deeper dive into the largest tribe, Syrphini. Syrphini is reducing fast, but Melanostomini, Bacchini, Eristalini and Rhingiini remain stubbornly similar in size.

7 genera have increased slightly, 28 are unchanged and 35 have fallen in numbers needing ID. The month's biggest % fallers (that had >50obs to start with) are: Eupeodes (-55%), Xylota (-46%), Xanthogramma (-13%), Chrysogaster (-12%), Helophilus (-12%), Parhelophilus (-12%) and Eristalis (-11%).

If you are new to identifying, a good way to get started is by identifying observations that are stuck at higher levels - bringing down the ID to genus, or species if you know it. This is less pressure than making things research grade. A third of all observations needing ID have not yet been identified to Genus; you can find them using the link on the URLs page

The neediest genera now (those with >100 obs needing ID) are: Platycheirus (1373), Eristalis (1186), Melanostoma (978), Eupeodes (635), Cheilosia (597), Syrphus (249), Helophilus (223), Xylota (120), and Neoascia (105). Hark at that! Eupeodes down to 4th! You may want to consider learning these genera, to make a bigger difference with your effort. The most accessable are probably Eristalis, Melanostoma, Syrphus, Helophilus and Xylota. See the resources page!

Have a great March!

All data compiled on 29-Feb-2024

Posted on March 1, 2024 12:15 AM by matthewvosper