Tuesday 11 October 2016

New cranefly for Northants

On 5th October I was visiting Sulby Gardens, mainly to look for hoverflies. However, as I was walking alongside the shady stream I swept the vegetation. I took several common species of cranefly but one stood out as different because of its peculiar appendages on the last sternite. I keyed it out to be a male Tipula staegeri, subgenus Savtshenkia. The NBN gateway shows it as being widespread except in the Midlands. I sent a photo to John Kramer from the national Cranefly Recording Scheme and he confirmed its identity and that they had no records of it from Northants. It is an easy species to identify in the male because of the appendages on the last sternite, slightly mottled wings and a yellowish stigma. It is found alongside shady streams from late September to mid November.


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