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I?ve got a lot of Eristalis hoverflies here, 40 km NW of Stockholm, Sweden. And of course I?ve a lot of photos of them.

Is it possible to determine the spieces on my photos? If it is, can you tell me how?

I have numbered the different flies, to make the investigation easier, but there may be the same spieces whith different number, or vice versa.

http://www.odla.n...a&aid=5208

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Hi Amaira
number 6 is Eristalis pertinax - easy to tell because it has pale front tarsi and a long, tapering abdomen. 7, 8 and 9 are all Eristalis tenax. It has a wide, dark stripe on the face, two vertical bands on the eyes and looks most like a drone honeybee.

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You are fantastic Tony! Thankyou!!!

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But 'm not so confident with the rest!
Number 1, 4 and 5 are abusiva females, showing a range of colour variation.
Number 2 I think is also abusiva, this time a male, but it looks as though it may have a plumose arista, in which case it's probably arbustorum.
E. abusiva is distinguished from similar species by the pale mid tibia, shown in some of your pictures.
Number 3 is a fairly robust species, I think a tenax female, though most of the diagnostic features are not visible.

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abusiva? Never heard about. *dizzy*

How many Eristalis are existing?

Now I got something to think about

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You are so fortunate in Sweden - you have 18 species of Eristalis. In Britain, we only have 9.
If you go to the Fauna Europaea site (http://www.faunae...ecies_list) and list species in [select genus], type in "Eristalis" then select country "Sweden", then press "display species" you should get a list of all the Swedish species.

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thanks again!!! Today I got the book Danmarks Svirrefluer (Denmarks Hoverflies) in my mailbox.Yippi. There too are all the Eristalis.
I have some education doing now see you later.

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Just 3 in Portugal mainland??? I suppose this must be updated!