Volucella of the West (Europe, Africa and the New World)
So I've been having lots of fun with Volucella recently. The centre of diversity of the genus is in the East, and I haven't got a handle on most of them (yet), but I thought I could deal with the 11 species West of the Urals and produce something. So here is a little key, with some general info, some species info and some slightly iffy but 'characterful' mouse-drawn diagrams! I learned a fair bit doing it and hopefully it's worth sharing - do let me know of any errors/inaccuracies.
(Note: this is also the first time I've tried to use the journal function - let alone embed something, so let's see how this goes!)
The species covered are Volucella actica, bombylans (including forms bombylans, haemorrhoidalis and plumata), elegans, evecta, facialis, inanis, inflata, liquida, pellucens (ssp pelluscens), zonaria (ssp zonaria and beckeri), and there are comments on an undescribed species in North America.
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Wow, this is awesome! And by coincidence I only just finished looking at Volucella in Nearctic! The female Volucella arctica on iNaturalist seem to have yellow hairs on the scutum. The descriptions otherwise I've seen are perhaps based only on males. @zdanko
@matthewvosper should we share this at https://sites.google.com/view/flyguide ?
Thanks, of course you'd be welcome to!
looking for a volucella bombylans subspecies explanation... jackpot! :)
:) Just to be clear, they are simply colour forms, not true subspecies, you won't find discrete communities of each.
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