Empria candidata

Empria species are generally difficult to identify and this one proved particularly challenging with a roller-coaster of emotions when it briefly masqueraded as a first for Britain. It was found around birch saplings among heather and using the old RES key it keyed to candidata, but as the NBN Atlas showed no records in Norfolk for this species I looked into it a bit harder. I came across a fairly recent Zootaza paper, "Revisionary study on European species of the Empria candidata complex" which provided a key for separating candidata from the non-British Empria magnicornis. The mesespisternum was a match for magnicornis, as was the shape of the scutellum! My first port of call for sawfly queries agreed it looked good for the first British record of Empria magnicornis. Excited, but not yet opening the champagne, I took his advice to seek advice from the Empria expert Marko Prous. Sadly Marko pointed me to an even more recent paper published in the Journal of Hymenoptera Research which showed that the characters alleged to separate magnicornis from candidata are not consistent and concluding that Empria magnicornis and Empria candidata are one and the same species. So this was "just" Empria candidata - but still a good record, the second for Norfolk and the first for 42 years.

female Empria candidata, Buxton Heath (Norfolk, UK), 23rd April 2021