About Epistrophe nitidicollis (Meigen, 1822)
Epistrophe nitidicollis (Meigen, 1822) has a wing length of 8–11.25 mm. Its face is wide, clear yellow, and lightly dusted along the eye margin. Its legs are yellow except for the dark coxae. The thorax is blackish and shiny, and the abdominal tergites have an even pattern of black and yellow. This species is similar to E. melanostoma, but is slightly narrower in shape, has a black band on tergite 5, and has black hairs on the scutellum. Hippa (1968) provided illustrations of the male genitalia of this species. Dusek and Laska (1959) described and illustrated the larva. This species is found in the Palaearctic and Nearctic realms. In the Palaearctic, its distribution ranges from Fennoscandia south to Iberia, extending east from Ireland through northern, central, and southern Europe into Russia, and continuing east through Siberia to the Pacific coast of Kamchatka and Sakhalin Island. In North America, it occurs from Alaska south to California and South Carolina.
