Ptychoptera paludosa, Meigen, 1830

Wiberg-Larsen, Peter, Hansen, Søren Birkholm, Rinne, Aki, Viitanen, Esko & Krogh, Paul Henning, 2021, Key to Ptychopteridae (Diptera) larvae of Northern Europe, with notes on distribution and biology, Zootaxa 5039 (2), pp. 179-200 : 194-195

Ptychoptera paludosa

The species has a southern distribution within the regarded geographical area ( Fig. 5D ) and is recorded in all countries except Estonia, Latvia and Russia (Kaliningrad) ( Zwick 2020). Its northern boundary is located at approx. 66° latitude. It seems to be abundant in most parts of its distributional area ( Figure 5G ), which extends to middle and southern Europe ( France, Italy, Balkan) and, to the east, into Romania and the European part of Turkey ( Zwick 2020).

The larvae are exclusively found in different types of running waters. Data from Denmark show that although the species has a preference for small streams (width <3 m), it also occurs in larger lotic waters. The preferred streams may be slow- to fast-flowing and are mostly situated in woodland but also in open land. In all cases, the larvae are found immediately alongside the banks where the current is low and the sediment consist of silt with a high organic content. According to Stubbs (1993), the habitats in the U.K. are densely shaded, silty streams but also include marginal areas of small, shaded, lowland rivers. Furthermore, the species is not found together with P. lacustris in the U.K., which is, however, often the case in small streams in Denmark.

Flight period generally ranges from May to June, with some records in July or even later. At the northern-most Fennoscandian sites, flight peaks about one month later than in the more southern areas.

Figures

FIGURE 5. Distribution of Ptychoptera species within the geographical area defined as Northern Europe, delineated by grey line. A. Ptychoptera albimana; B. P. lacustris; C. P. longicauda; D. P. paludosa. Blue dots show specific records, blue raster indicates confirmed but unspecified presence and red raster indicates likely presence.