6
MOTH TRAPPING AT SANDFORD MILL - 15th AUGUST 1996
A very warm night during a prolonged (since June) heat wave. Street lamps at the site
were not very helpful.
Present: Tony Walentowicz, Tony Boniface.
List of macro moths identified
Common Wainscot
Bulrush Wainscot
Setaceous Hebrew Character
Common Rustic
Brimstone
Flame Shoulder
Angle Shades
Marbled Beauty
Shuttle-shaped Dart
Square-spot Rustic
Spectacle
Flounced Rustic
Mythimna pallens
Nonagria typhae
Xestia c-nigrum
Mesapamea secalis
Opisthograptis luteolata
Ochroplena plecta
Phlogophora meticulosa
Cryphia domestica
Agrotis puta puta
Xestia xanthographa
Abrostola triplasia
Luperina testacea
Tony Walentowicz
Volucella inflata, a rare hoverfly refound in Essex
On the 13th June 1996 while visiting an area just north of Stansted Mountfitchet with
Colin Plant, I caught a single female of the large hoverfly Volucella inflata on a roadside
verge next to an old sand pit. Earlier in the day I had briefly seen another Volucella which
might also have been this species at some Mock Orange (Philadelphus) blossom close by.
On the 23rd June Colin and myself paid a second visit to the area and we found males and
females of the hoverfly to be present in some numbers visiting the Mock Orange blossom.
The species is thought to be associated with old broadleaved woodland, with a probable
requirement for old and diseased trees with sap runs, especially those attacked by the goat
moth Cossus cossus. The nearest wood of any size is Alsa Wood, an ancient wood about
one kilometre to the east.
There are only three previous records of this rare hoverfly in Essex. The most recent is
by Colin Plant of one male in a malaise trap at Canfield Hart at TL5619 in July 1983.
There are then two old records for Colchester in 1903 and for Wintry Wood, Epping
Forest on the 27th June 1948.
Species of Volucella are large hoverflies which mimic bumblebees or have the warning
colours used by hornets and other wasps. The larvae specialise as scavengers in the nests
of bumblebees and social wasps, though Volucella inflata is more associated with sap
runs. Adults have been observed ovipositing in sap runs on a tree trunk and larvae,
thought to be of this species, have been found at this location (British Hoverflies by
Stubbs & Falk, 1983) and Falk states that an association with wasps nests like its relatives
does not seem likely and its distribution does not completely match that of the hornet
Vespa crabro which would be its most likely host (A review of the scarce and threatened
flies of Great Britain by Falk, 1991)
Peter Harvey