Black-banded Hoverfly

Asarkina sp.

Description:

Syrphidae; Syrphinae; Syrphini; Asarkina Macquart, 1834. Asarkina sp. "The Syrphini are a tribe of hoverflies....Relationships within this tribe were investigated by analysing and comparing genetic data. Results seem to show the members of Syrphini fall into several smaller groups or clades." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrphini. "Asarkina is a genus of hoverfly." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asarkina.

Habitat:

This Hoverfly was spotted in a rice field almost two months after the harvest. By that time, the field had been completely taken over by a wide variety of wild meadow plants.

Notes:

Macquart, 1834

Species ID Suggestions

5 Comments

Võ Anh Tuấn a year ago

John B., Please allow me to have fun with you.

John B. a year ago

Hi Võ Anh Tuấn, once again I thank you for your help. I saw your 3 comments coming in, but my wife had just served our evening meal. So please forgive the delay in answering. I would answer your 3 points like this: 1. The common name Black-banded Hoverfly is much better. I copied my common name from another similar projectnoah spotting. 2. Asarkina sp. is also much better. I could not identify the Genus without your comment. 3. I looked at the jungledragon image 99951 and thought you had also identified the species Asarkina porcina, but then I realised you were using it as an example of the Genus only. It is so very close to my specimen. I can see only a small difference at the scutellum. Mine has a black scutellum with a very small white stripe. So it cannot be A. porcina, but I am happy to call it Asarkina sp. Thank so much for all your help. Now I can edit my spotting to make it much more accurate. John B.