Cheilosia pagana

Cheilosia is the largest UK hoverfly genus with around 37 different species. Most of this genus are rather nondescript, small black flies and it can be difficult to identify species.

Female C.Pagana are quite distinctive, they have very large, orange third antennal segment. Males, as seen in the photo also have an orange third antennal segment although it is smaller than in females. Characters used for identification include the bare arista, lack of hairs on the eyes, glossy black face, black hairs on the scutellum and hairs of uniform length on the lateral margin of the fourth abdominal segment.