Distribution and Habitat
The Manx robber fly was first discovered on the Isle of Man in the 1940s, hence the name 'Manx', meaning from the Isle of Man, although this species has been referred to as the Irish robber fly in British Soldierflies and their Allies. It was originally thought to be endemic to the island but has since also been found across the Irish Sea on sand dunes on the east coast of Ireland. There is only one authenticated record from the United Kingdom. Speight also found the fly in Germany in 1987 and has identified flies from museum specimens collected from north Germany, the Netherlands, northern France and Hungary to be M. cowini, not M. cingulatus as formerly believed.
It was first discovered in the curragh (willow carr/swamp) habitat in the north of Isle of Man and was recorded there again in the mid 1990s when a pair was caught in a pan trap by Steve Crellin, a local entomologist. Although found in the curragh this pair were probably associated with a man-made sod hedge. Furthermore it is believed that a former locality of the species, on road verges and farmland near the old Ballamona Hospital, just outside Douglas, the capital of the Isle of Man, have been unknowingly destroyed by road widening and other ribbon development, as an ecological survey undertaken prior to the building of the new Nobles Hospital failed to locate any specimens despite extensive trapping and surveying. The robber fly still exists at a number of sites throughout the north of the Isle of Man, including The Ayres National Nature Reserve and Manx Wildlife Trust's reserve at Cronk y Bing where it is probably associated with dry sandy conditions (possibly it's larval habitat) and vegetation such as brambles and gorse which provide perching sites.
Speight noted flourishing colonies existing along the sandy coasts of the north-east Isle of Man.
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