The National Biodiversity Data Centre has published a new illustrated key to hoverfly species in the genus Volucella. This is a technical document, but we hope it might be of interest to some of you.
Hoverflies of the genus Volucella spend much of their time on flowers, where they are easy to observe. They are also of reasonable size and brightly coloured, making them noticeable. A new species was added in 2023 (Volucella zonaria, image below), bringing our total number of Volucella species to three. These three species, V. bombylans, V. pellucens and V. zonaria, are not difficult to distinguish from one another.
We are very grateful to Dr Martin Speight, who has produced this illustrated key to their identification for the National Biodiversity Data Centre. There are an additional three Volucella species in Europe, and the key includes these, so it should be possible to use the key for identifying Volucella species both in Ireland elsewhere in Europe.
Download the pdf guide: Volucella species: identifying them, finding them and a bit about their biology
