About Caliprobola speciosa (Rossi, 1790)
For terminology explanations, see Morphology of Diptera. Caliprobola speciosa is a large, slender-bodied hoverfly, with a wingspan of 13–17 mm. Its body is brassy aeneous or dark metallic green, and the base of its abdomen is black. Tergites 2, 3, and 4 each have a thin black transverse line, followed by a broad metallic green band, a thin black transverse line that is broken in the middle, and a transverse stripe of golden hairs. Its prominent orange-yellow frons is projecting and cone-shaped. The face is yellow, and the legs are yellow, with only the base of the femora being black. The wings are yellowish, with dark shading at the tip. The larva of this species was described and figured by Rotheray in 1994. This species is distributed across Europe, ranging from southern England to northern Spain, and extends across the Palearctic region as far as eastern Siberia. It is not found in Scandinavia or other northern regions.
