Breathe In And Out...

By ScotNatureBoy

A second new hoverfly record in the garden

As reported yesterday, I've come across a couple of species of hoverfly in our garden that I haven't seen before. As with yesterday's backblip, I took several other shots of this insect to help with identification. As usual, I couch this in terms of the online warnings about identifying hoverflies from photos alone. But, as with yesterday's specimen, I checked a range of online sources for the identity of this one. As best as I can work out, with its amazingly lacquer-shiny black thorax (the section of body between head and abdomen) and its off-white bum , it is probably a hoverfly called Cheilosia illustrata. Now, this is a species much associated with cmmon hogweed and is often found on its flowers. But it also likes Angelica, an even taller umbellifer and we have some in flower in the garden for the first time in many years. It is nice to think we might be attracting in New species by diversifying the plants in our garden!

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