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Volucella zonaria (Poda, 1761)

Identification

Identification difficulty = 2. eyeball_icon camera_filled_icon according to Ball & Morris, 20241

Biology

The larva is a scavenger and a predator in the nests of social wasps (including the Hornet Vespa crabro), where they probably feed on larvae and pupae. This is our largest and most spectacular hoverfly and seems to be entirely anthropogenic in Britain. It is usually seen visiting flowers in suburban areas, especially Butterfly-bush Buddleja, where it occurs in parks and gardens. Many recent records come from civic amenity plantings around carparks and urban roads. Listed as a long-distance migrant by Reynolds et al. (2024)2.

Flight period

Adults fly from May to September with the peak in late July to early August. The following plots show the number of unique records per week excluding those reported to be of immature stages. Phenology plots for Volucella zonaria

Status

Was listed as 'Notable' by Falk, 19913, but dropped from this status by Ball & Morris, 20144 who consider it LOWER RISK.

Distribution

Verrall (1901)5 only knew of two specimens, and until about 1940 it was regarded as a rare vagrant to the south coast of England, and greatly prized by collectors. During the 1940s and 50s, it became established in the London area, a few coastal localities in southern England and in the Bristol area (Morris & Ball, 20046). It has undergone a rapid range expansion since the mid-1990s and now occurs north to central Scotland (Ball & Morris, 20217). There have been two even more northerly records: from a location near Forres in Moray in 2023 and Ulva in the Inner Hebrides in 2026. Distribution map for Volucella zonaria

Trends

This species has undergone a considerable expansion in both range and frequency since the mid-1990s. It is particularly well recorded because of its occurrence in gardens which leads to many reports and photographs from casual observers being submitted to websites. The following plots show the Frescalo TFactor vs year and a map of the rescaled frequency (all records) for the species.Trend plots for Volucella zonaria

  1. Ball, S., & Morris, R. (2024). Hoverflies of Britain and Ireland. WILDGuides (3rd ed.). Oxford: Princeton University Press. ↩

  2. Reynolds, S. K., Clem, C. S., Fitz-Gerald, B., & Young, A. D. (2024). A comprehensive review of long-distance hover fly migration (Diptera: Syrphidae). Ecological Entomology, 49(6), 749–767. ↩

  3. Falk, S. (1991). A review of the scarce and threatened flies of Great Britain. ( No. 39). Research and Survey in Nature Conservation (pp. 1–194). Peterborough: NCC. ↩

  4. Ball, S., & Morris, R. (2014). A review of the scarce and threatened flies of Great Britain. Part 6: Syrphidae. ( No. 9). Species status (pp. 1–130). Peterborough: JNCC. ↩

  5. Verrall, G. (1901). British Flies 8: Platypezidae, Pipunculidae and Syrphidae of Great Britain. London: Gurney and Jackson. ↩

  6. Morris, R., & Ball, S. (2004). Sixty years of Volucella zonaria (Poda) (Diptera: Syrphidae) in Britain. British Journal of Entomology and Natural History, 17, 217–227. ↩

  7. Ball, S., & Morris, R. (2021). Recent range expansion in British hoverflies (Diptera, Syrphidae). Dipterists Digest (Second Series), 28, 59–87. ↩