Appearance
As with most hoverfly species the sexes can be told apart by the male's eyes meeting on the top of the head, but separated in the female. One of the smaller hoverflies the wing length is around 4.5 to 8 mm.
Distribution
This species overwinters as a larva and can be seen on the wing from spring until autumn. Generally it can be found in shady places low to the ground in woodlands and along hedgerows.Common and widely distributed throughout Britain and Ireland wherever there is suitable habitat though easily overlooked due to its unobtrusive nature. Further afield the range includes the western palearctic and North America.
Food
As with most other members of the subfamily Syrphinae the larvae are predatory though there seems to be a preference for a variety of different ground-layer aphids.References:
Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.
