Pine Black (Zabrachia tenella)
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Invertebrate > insect - true fly (Diptera) > Soldier fly or ally |
| Red List Status: | Endangered (Not Relevant) [EN(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: | Zabrachia tenella |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | (Jaennicke, 1866) |
| UKSI Recommended Qualifier: | (none specified) |
| Red List Citation: | Drake, 2017 |
| Notes on taxonomy/listing: | (none) |
Criteria
| Question 1: | Does species need conservation or recovery in England? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Declined markedly since 1990, only four English records in the past 25 years. Even though the adult is tiny, this wouldn’t explain the lack of records, especially with more identification resources available now |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | No |
| Justification: | The larvae are associated with recently dead pines, (in vacated galleries of bark beetles) often in shaded areas with thickets of young trees; which with the proliferation of pine plantations should be a fairly common occurrence. The reason for decline is unknown. |
| 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
Not relevant as no Key Actions defined.
Key Actions
No Key Actions Defined
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.