Meadow Field Syrph Eupeodes latifasciatus

I've gone with Steven Falk's vernacular name rather than the half-way house Meadow Eupeodes that appears in one or two places. I don't think any of these vernacular names are universally recognised yet.

I'd recorded a few of these before but the first one here caused me some problems. When I first examined it I checked the squamae a bit carelessly, being semi-confident that it would prove to be Eupeodes rather than Syrphus based on its overall appearance, though admittedly I'm not sure I'm really experienced enough with these to do so yet. The hairs on the sides of tergites 3 and 4 were entirely black which, according to the table in Ball & Morris, should make it Eupeodes. It was a female and the extent of black on the head (and absence of dusting) pointed to Eupeodes latifasciatus. Simple.

The problem was that I looked at the second basal cell and that clearly had an extensive window lacking microtrichia. I'm not entirely clear from Ball & Morris whether the "most reliable character" of the "2nd basal cell is completely covered in microtrichia" comment is intended to apply to both sexes or just males, which are harder to identify using other characters, but if it does apply to females, and really is the "most reliable character" then this can't be latifasciatus. Assuming I was correct with the genus, it also keys to latifasciatus using Stubbs & Falk, and here they specifically refer to the microtrichia character in relation to females, but helpfully they caveat this with "usually", the implication being that not sbowing this character does not necessarily mean the ID is wrong. However, Stubbs & Falk require Syrphus to be eliminated on squamae hairs before using the colour of the tergite side hairs to key it to Eupeodes, so I needed to look at this again.

There were short pale hairs on the upper surface of the squamae which, according to Ball & Morris, is diagnostic of Syrphus: "Hairs on uppers surface of squamae diagnosic [for Syrphus]." Stubbs and Falk are more helpful here, for they specifically say the hairs must be long, and they weren't long at all. So in the absence of long hairs I concluded it keyed to Eupeodes. But just in case Ball & Morris were right, I felt I should also key it as Syrphus. Doing so leads straight to rectus/ribesii. The common ribesii also has the basal cells covered in microtrichia (and no "usually" caveat here) so it's not that, and there was no sign of dark on the legs that should be shown by the extremely unlikely rectus. Moreover photos of both these Syrphus species on Steven Falk's excellent Flickr site showed other consistent differences which reaffirmed my initial impression that it was Eupeodes not Syrphus. So in the end I'm sticking with Eupeodes latifasciatus as the correct ID, but if I have gone wrong somewhere please let me know!

female Meadow Field Syrph Eupeodes latifasciatus showing head from front, wing and close-ups of second basal cell and alula, North Elmham railway (Norfolk, UK), 12th September 2022

I've recorded this species a few times before, though I don't seem to have any close-up photos of the wing characters for any of them. None of these had felt particularly probelmatic so far as I recall.

male Meadow Field Syrph Eupeodes latifasciatus, Cathedral Meadows, North Elmham (Norfolk, UK), 30th August 2018

female Meadow Field Syrph Eupeodes latifasciatus, Cathedral Meadows, North Elmham (Norfolk, UK), 12th August 2018

male Meadow Field Syrph Eupeodes latifasciatus, North Elmham (Norfolk, UK), 26th September 2018

female Meadow Field Syrph Eupeodes latifasciatus, Cathedral Meadows, North Elmham (Norfolk, UK), 12th August 2019

female Meadow Field Syrph Eupeodes latifasciatus, Cathedral Meadows, North Elmham (Norfolk, UK), 22nd April 2019

male Meadow Field Syrph Eupeodes latifasciatus, North Elmham (Norfolk, UK), 10th September 2016

female Meadow Field Syrph Eupeodes latifasciatus, North Elmham (Norfolk, UK), 4th September 2014

male Meadow Field Syrph Eupeodes latifasciatus, North Elmham (Norfolk, UK), 12th August 2018