NEW RECORDS OF CERIANA ABBREVIATA LOEW (DIPTERA, SYRPHIDAE) IN GUELPH, ONTARIO AFTER 110 YEARS
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The northern wasp fly, Ceriana abbreviata Loew (Diptera: Syrphidae), is a rare species of flower fly occurring across a broad range in North America from the Northwest Territories, Canada to southern Arizona, USA.There are 107 physical specimens of C. abbreviata deposited between the Canadian National Collection of Insects, Arachnids and Nematodes (CNC; 53 specimens) and miscellaneous institutions as reflected in the CNC database (an additional 8 specimens deposited in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History; 4 specimens deposited in the American Museum of Natural History) and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility database (GBIF 2025; 42 specimens).Of these records, 26 are from Ontario.Collection records for Ontario show that the species' flight period is between May and July.Nearctic Ceriana is easily distinguished from other Syrphidae in the region as it is the only genus in northeastern North America with a distinct antennifer, long antennae (scape three to four times as long as wide), each of which has a terminal stylus instead of an arista, and bare eyes (Figure 1) (Vockeroth and Thompson 1987).Ceriana abbreviata has a noted resemblance to Potter wasps (Hymenoptera: Vespidae: Eumeninae) (Metcalf 1913).This species is most likely to be confused with C. mime (Hull), a poorly defined relative in need of revision.The larvae of this species are known to be saprophagous, with a single larva of C. abbreviata being reared from Populus balsamifera L. (Salicaceae) (Skevington et al. 2019; CNC_Diptera37864), and three larvae collected from sap-soaked detritus in a tree hole of Liquidambar styraciflua L. (Altingiaceae) (Maeir 1982;Rotheray et al. 1998).Curran (1925) suggests that the genus (therein referred to as Cerioides Rondani) is univoltine, likely overwintering as larvae on host plants.Maier and Waldbauer (1979) found that C. abbreviata adults are most active in mid-morning hours in response to floral anthesis and hygrothermal stress.Maier and Waldbauer (1979) also note that more C. abbreviata females were collected in proximity to flowers than males.The first known record of C. abbreviata from Canada is a specimen (ROME90508) collected in June 1895 from Toronto, Ontario by William Brodie.The second record is a female specimen (CNC_Diptera37872) collected in June 1913 from Guelph, Ontario
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".