Males of P. pennina may be distinguished from males of other Pipizella species by their possession of a pair or shallow, denticulate projections close to the posterior margin of abdominal sternum 4 (Speight 2010).
Marcos-Garcia (1985) established the synonymy of microapicalis Lucas with this species.
Synoyms:
Heringia pennina Goeldlin, 1974: 239.
Pipizella microapicalis Lucas, 1976: 9.
Pipizella pennina (Goeldlin, 1974).
Goeldlin de Tiefenau, P. (1974) Contribution a l'etude systematique et ecologique des Syrphidae (Dipt.) de la Suisse occidentale. Mitteilungen der Schweizerische Entomologische Gesellschaft 47(3-4), 151-252.
Flowers visited: white umbellifers; Potentilla erecta (Speight 2010).
Flight period: from mid of June to July (Speight 2010).
Species known from Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain (Pyrenees), southern Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Serbia, and Roumania (Speight 2010).
Adult flies along the edge of clearings etc., around bushes and shrubs, at up to 1 m from the ground (Speight 2010).
Preferred environment: forest/open ground; clearings in Fagus/Picea forest in the montane zone, and on up to the upper limits of Picea forest in the Alps (Speight 2010).
unless otherwise stated