UK Hoverfly Resources

 
 
 
Websites:
The Hoverfly Recording Scheme has a Facebook group here

Steven Falk’s Flickr site contains information and photographs on almost every British species. (It also contains a lot more than just hoverflies)
 
 
 
Books:
Britain’s Hoverflies (WildGuides) by Ball and Morris is the best introductory guide to UK hoverflies. A new edition is due in September (now delayed), but it is already available for preorder.

Hoverflies: An Illustrated Guide by Stubbs and Falk is comprehensive (except for a small number of recent additions to the UK’s list of hoverflies) and more advanced, but still accessible for those with a real interest.

Hoverflies of Northwest Europe: Identification Keys to the Syrphidae by van Veen is a book of identification keys that includes all of the UK species but also the other species of hoverfly in the wider region. It is most powerful with specimen in hand as not all of the features it uses are visible in photographs, but there is also plenty of information that is useful for photo-identifying this wider group of hoverflies.

Hoverflies of Britain and North-west Europe by Dutch specialists Sander Bot and Frank de Muetter looks exciting; obviously it will cover non-UK species too. It is due out on 26th Oct.
 

 
 
Other resources on iNat relevant to the UK fauna:
There is a separate project specifically for UK hoverfly larvae that also feeds into the HRS

The following resources by iNat users are arranged taxonomically with the author’s username in parenthesis:
Subfamily Syrphinae:
  Tribe Bacchini
Mapping UK Platycheirus recording groups onto iNat taxonomy (matthewvosper)
Key to British Male Platycheirus Incorporating the Main Infrageneric Groupings in iNat (matthewvosper)
Key to British Female Platycheirus Incorporating the Main Infrageneric Groupings in iNat (matthewvosper)

  Tribe Melanostomini

  Tribe Syrphini
Identifying Sphaerophoria in the UK from Photos (matthewvosper in UK Syrphidae Project)
Key to the Syrphus of Europe (matthewvosper)
Identifying Syrphus in the UK from Photos (matthewvosper in UK Syrphidae Project)
Xanthogramma Species in Europe (carnifex)

Subfamily Eristalinae:
  Tribe Brachyopini
  Tribe Callicerini
  Tribe Cerioidini

  Tribe Eristalini
Distinguishing Eristalis arbustorum and Eristalis abusiva (matthewvosper)

  Tribe Merodontini
  Tribe Milesiini
  Tribe Rhingiini

  Tribe Volucellini
Volucella of the West (Europe, Africa and the New World) (matthewvosper)

Subfamily Microdontinae:
 
 
 
If you know of other resources that should be linked to here, please mention them in the comments.

Posted on June 28, 2023 01:53 PM by matthewvosper