New hoverfly species discovery in the Netherlands

Translated from John Smits in the Netherlands:

16 December 2015

The genus Psilota includes some small black hoverflies. They have long been overlooked, possibly because they do not look like very typical hoverflies. Since 1988, P. anthracina and P. atra have been observed in the Netherlands. There was suspicion that there was another species still. This was recently confirmed by DNA barcoding research by Naturalis. An individual of the Filosofendal near Beek and an individual of Velp were found to belong to P. exilistyla.

Migratory hoverflies are “key” to pollination and controlling crop pests amid the decline of many other insect species, new research shows: here.

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