Sphaerophoria loewi
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Invertebrate > insect - true fly (Diptera) > Hoverfly |
| Red List Status: | Near Threatened (Not Relevant) [NT(nr)] |
| D5 Status: | Included in the baseline Red List Index for England (Wilkins, Wilson & Brown, 2022) |
| Section 41 Status: | (not listed) |
| Taxa Included Synonym: | (none) |
| UKSI Recommended Name: | Sphaerophoria loewi |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | Zetterstedt, 1843 |
| UKSI Recommended Qualifier: | (none specified) |
| Red List Citation: | Ball & Morris, 2014 |
| Notes on taxonomy/listing: | (none) |
Criteria
| Question 1: | Does species need conservation or recovery in England? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Clearly very rare in England with most records representing brackish coastal sites but also a few brackish inland sites plus a few anomalous non-Brackish sites. Very rare in Wales and Scotland. Near Threatened in Europe (IUCN). |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Currently there is insufficient understanding of the specific needs of this species . |
| Question 3: | At a landscape scale, would the species benefit from untargeted habitat management to increase habitat mosaics, structural diversity, or particular successional stages? |
| Response: | No |
| Justification: | This species would not benefit from untargeted management |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 4. Autecology and pressures understood |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Unknown |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Opportunistic - insufficient |
| Species Comments: | Preserving, enhancing and improving the connectivity of brackish coastal marsh, especially the presence of Sea Clubrush and Common Reed, will be of importance. |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Specific targeted surveying/monitoring in its key area to investigate its current status (to feed into a revision of the Red List), the extent of populations and whether there are specific habitat needs. This could be linked to the Lejops vittata work.
Action targets: 2. Biological status assessment exists
Action type: Status survey/review
Duration: 2 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 50 sites
High priority sites: Christchurch Harbour, the Solent, Sussex, Kent, Thames Gateway and East Anglia.
Comments:
Acknowledgment:
Data used on this website are adapted from Threatened species recovery actions 2025 baseline (JP065): Technical report and spreadsheet user guide (Natural England, 2025). Available here.