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Milesia virginiensis (Drury, 1773), ♂, (SBH), habitus dorsal. Collected in the USA, South Carolina, 3 September 2018, leg. and coll. S. Bot.
Source publication
Milesia cretica Bot & van Steenis sp. nov. is described from the Island of Crete, Greece. An identification key to all the European species of Milesia Latreille, 1804 is provided, together with DNA barcodes to distinguish the new species.
Context in source publication
Context 1
... overall appearance, M. cretica sp. nov. is remarkably similar to the Nearctic species Milesia virginiensis (Fig. 6), sharing the black and yellow pattern on terga 2, 3 and 4. This is unexpected since M. virginiensis occurs in a different realm and belongs to a different species group (Hippa 1990). The Milesia crabroniformis group differs from the Milesia virginiensis group by, for example, slightly tuberculate face; alula and cell r completely ...
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The genus Limonia Meigen, 1803 is globally distributed with 216 known species/subspecies, of which 30 are recorded from China. In this study, we firstly use DNA barcodes (mt COI) to identify specimens of Limonia from China, result in a discovery of three species. Considering the morphological data, these species were identified as L. albiterminalis...
Citations
... Milesia crabroniformis, Milesia semiluctifera (Villers, 1789) and the recently discovered Milesia cretica Bot & van Steenis, 2022, are the three Milesia species occurring in Europe (Speight, 2020;Bot et al., 2022), with the immature stages of M. crabroniformis being the ones found and described in the present work. Milesia crabroniformis is distributed from northern France to southern Spain, and around the Mediterranean Basin (Hippa, 1990;Speight, 2020). ...
... Milesia crabroniformis, Milesia semiluctifera (Villers, 1789) and the recently discovered Milesia cretica Bot & van Steenis, 2022, are the three Milesia species occurring in Europe (Speight, 2020;Bot et al., 2022), with the immature stages of M. crabroniformis being the ones found and described in the present work. Milesia crabroniformis is distributed from northern France to southern Spain, and around the Mediterranean Basin (Hippa, 1990;Speight, 2020). ...
With over 80 species, Milesia Latreille, 1804 is a hoverfly genus (Diptera: Syrphidae) is found in all continents except for Australia and the Antarctica. However, little is known about its life cycle and biology. The three Milesia species for which early stages are known have saproxylic larvae, suggesting that the larvae of all other Milesia species are also saproxylic. The early stages of the three Milesia species occurring in Europe are undescribed. Milesia crabroniformis (Fabricius, 1775), a mimic of the hornet Vespa crabro Linnaeus, 1758, is the largest hoverfly in Europe and is listed as Least Concern in the IUCN European Red List of Hoverflies. We here report the first early stages of Milesia ever found in Europe, describing them and their breeding sites. Larvae of M. crabroniformis were collected in water-filled tree holes of live chestnut trees (Castanea sativa Mill.) in Málaga, Southern Spain in 2020-2021. Various studies based on stereomicroscope and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques have proven useful in diagnosing hoverfly early stages by the observation of their fine morphology. Thus, these techniques were also used here to characterize the second (L2) and third (L3) stage larvae of M. crabroniformis, as well as the puparium. A Leica M205 C binocular stereomicroscope and a Jeol JSM-ITH500HR SEM were used. The head skeleton and chaetotaxy of the L3 larva were described and illustrated. Adjustments to the diagnosis of the larvae of Milesia are proposed based on the number of hooks from the primary row of the main group of hooks. The new early stages are compared with those of other Milesia hoverflies, as well as with those of the sister group Spilomyia Meigen, 1803. The knowledge of the larval biology and breeding sites of saproxylic insects is useful for implementing forest management measures and species’ conservation programs.
In this study we present a commented and referenced species list of the Syrphidae (Diptera) collected during the surveys of the Our Planet Reviewed in Corsica 2019-2021 programme. We studied a total of 2420 specimens belonging to 131 taxa, which were collected during the field campaigns between 2019 and 2022 using different methodologies: hand collecting, hand-net, interception traps, light traps, Malaise traps, sweep-netting, and coloured pan traps. The genera Anasimyia Schiner, 1864, Brachyopa Meigen, 1822, Lapposyrphus Dušek & Láska, 1967, Lejops Rondani, 1857, Melangyna Verrall, 1901, Neocnemodon Goffe, 1944, and Parhelophilus Girschner, 1897, are recorded from Corsica for the first time, and we also provide records for 30 species new to Corsica. Among the studied material, we present records for 17 threatened species in Europe and three endemics of Corsica. Furthermore, we report a new location for the Critically Endangered Riponnensia daccordii (Claussen, 1991) and corroborate that it is not extinct.
