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Pherbellia cinerella (Diptera, Sciomyzidae), male. Canon EOS R, MP-E65, F3.5, ISO 100, stack of 102 shots. The scale bar is 1mm.
The Smail-killing Flies (Sciomyzidae) are a small family (72 British species) whose larvae feed on snails and slugs. This species is often abundant in dry grassland such as dunes, heathland (where this one came from) and chalk or limestone grasslands but can also be found in wetter places and is often abundant in saltmarsh. The larvae feed on a wide range of both terrestrial and aquatic snails. In the lab, its larvae take about a fortnight to develop and the pupal stage lasts about the same again, so a generation takes about a month. In the field it seems to breed continuously, with multiple generations, and can be found from about late-March or April thriugh to the Autumn, and seems to keep going as long as it stays warm enough, which these days may be late October or even November.
