Doros destillatorius Mik, 1885

Materials

Type status: Other material. Occurrence: recordedBy: Umberto Maritano; individualCount: 1; sex: female; lifeStage: adult; behavior: flying up and down near mosses; occurrenceID: BF05F808-7959-5211-BAB4-2DFC33A83E40; Location: country: Italy; stateProvince: Piedmont; municipality: Leinì (TO); verbatimElevation: 272 m; verbatimLatitude: 45 ° 12 ' 54 '' N; verbatimLongitude: 7 ° 44 ' 01 '' E; verbatimCoordinateSystem: WGS 84; decimalLatitude: 45.215; decimalLongitude: 7.7336111; geodeticDatum: WGS 84; Identification: identifiedBy: Umberto Maritan; Event: samplingProtocol: entomological net; eventDate: 2019-09 - 03; eventTime: 14: 00 Z; habitat: Young Quercus plantation; Record Level: type: PhysicalObject; collectionID: Umberto Maritano Collection

Type status: Other material. Occurrence: recordedBy: Umberto Maritano; individualCount: 1; sex: female; lifeStage: adult; behavior: flying up and down on sap-run; occurrenceID: 9C4F52B0-5DC6-577A-AD08-C679822399B1; Location: country: Italy; stateProvince: Piedmont; municipality: Niella Tanaro (CN); locality: Valle Briaglia; verbatimElevation: 470 m; verbatimLatitude: 44 ° 24 ' 24 '' N; verbatimLongitude: 7 ° 53 ' 51 '' E; verbatimCoordinateSystem: WGS 84; decimalLatitude: 44.4066666; decimalLongitude: 7.8975; geodeticDatum: WGS 84; Identification: identifiedBy: Umberto Maritano; Event: samplingProtocol: entomological net; eventDate: 2021-09 - 01; eventTime: 13: 00 Z / 14: 30 Z; habitat: Old Quercus mixed forest; eventRemarks: flying on sap-run; Record Level: type: PhysicalObject; collectionID: Umberto Maritano Collection

Type status: Other material. Occurrence: recordedBy: Umberto Maritano; individualCount: 2; sex: male; lifeStage: adult; occurrenceID: 6978EE6B-92F6-5FED-97A3-08E569E844B1; Location: country: Italy; stateProvince: Piedmont; municipality: Valdieri (CN); locality: Casa del pescatore; verbatimElevation: 1278 m; verbatimLatitude: 44 ° 12 ' 56 '' N; verbatimLongitude: 7 ° 16 ' 47 '' E; verbatimCoordinateSystem: WGS 84; decimalLatitude: 44.2155555; decimalLongitude: 7.2797222; geodeticDatum: WGS 84; Identification: identifiedBy: Umberto Maritano; Event: samplingProtocol: Malaise trap; eventDate: 2022-09 - 07 / 13; habitat: Fagus forest; eventRemarks: near stream; Record Level: type: PhysicalObject; collectionID: Umberto Maritano Collection

Type status: Other material. Occurrence: recordedBy: Umberto Maritano; individualCount: 1; sex: male; lifeStage: adult; behavior: foraging; occurrenceID: FAE3FF9C-CCDD-5A20-9457-AD8465A7C223; Location: country: Italy; stateProvince: Piedmont; municipality: Bussoleno (TO); locality: Foresto; verbatimElevation: 513 m; verbatimLatitude: 45 ° 08 ' 34 '' N; verbatimLongitude: 7 ° 06 ' 52 '' E; verbatimCoordinateSystem: WGS 84; decimalLatitude: 45.1427777; decimalLongitude: 7.1144444; geodeticDatum: WGS 84; Identification: identifiedBy: Umberto Maritano; Event: samplingProtocol: entomological net; eventDate: 2023-09 - 22; eventTime: 14: 50 Z; habitat: scattered Quercus pubescens; eventRemarks: on Hedera helix; Record Level: type: PhysicalObject; collectionID: Umberto Maritano Collection

Type status: Other material. Occurrence: recordedBy: Luciana Bartolini; individualCount: 1; sex: male; lifeStage: adult; behavior: roosting; occurrenceID: 7652D64B-3B13-5832-AD6F-63D0F8E143DC; Location: country: Italy; stateProvince: Tuscany; municipality: Laterina Pergine Valdarno (AR); locality: Bandella - Riserva naturale della Valle dell'Inferno e Bandella; verbatimElevation: 167 m; verbatimLatitude: 43 ° 30 ' 36 '' N; verbatimLongitude: 11 ° 39 ' 30 '' E; verbatimCoordinateSystem: WGS 84; decimalLatitude: 43.51; decimalLongitude: 11.6583333; geodeticDatum: WGS 84; georeferenceRemarks: no exact location, maximum error 1, 5 km; Identification: identifiedBy: Umberto Maritano; Event: eventDate: 2008-09 - 10; eventTime: 16: 12 Z; eventRemarks: on leaves on the ground; Record Level: type: Stillimage; source: https://www.lucianabartolini.net/Immagini/ditteri/sirfidi/ Syrphidae - Doros. jpg

Distribution

Doros destillatorius Fig. 9 is a rarely seen hoverfly, endangered according to the European Red List (Vujić et al. 2022), and mainly found in the Mediterranean region. It has low density populations with only 1- 2 specimens collected in each known locality.

In Italy, it is known from the holotype found in Friuli-Venezia Giulia near the city of Gorizia (Speight 1987), and from the other few observations made in other regions such as: Lazio (Prestininzi 2009), Veneto (Sommaggio 2017), Valle d’Aosta, Abruzzo, Sardinia and Tuscany (Birtele 2011).

From the Piedmont region, the only specimen known before this paper is from the Regional Museum of Natural Science of Turin and was collected in the year 1980 near Bussoleno (Turin Province) hamlet Pietrabianca. Fig. 10 shows all the new records of Doros destillatorius collected by the author (UM) in the Piedmont region. We report here also a new record for Tuscany.

Ecology

Although the surveys were conducted consistently throughout the entire season (from March to October every 10 days) in each of the reported sites, all the specimens were observed in September with females observed at the beginning of the month and males in the subsequent days. The first specimen observed (in 2019) was a female which during the hottest hours of the day moved up and down exploring mosses on the bark of a young oak tree plantation. The second specimen observed was another female (year 2021) which during the hottest hours of the day moved up and down exploring a sap-run on a large oak tree (Fig. 11). In the year 2022 a couple of males were collected by Malaise trap near a stream into a beech forest. In the year 2023, a male was seen with the aid of binoculars foraging on the top of a large ivy bloom (Fig. 11) surrounded by a landscape of few scattered Quercus pubescens and Bromus erectus. It first visited the flowers at the top of the ivy (4-5 metres above the ground) and then gradually went down to visit flowers halfway up the plant. This is the first observation of Doros destillatorius on Hedera helix as the only data available from literature reports it on Rubus fruticosus (Speight 2020).