Chaetostomella undosa

Moved

Moved from Yellow Starthistle Peacock Fly.

… Hartmut Wisch, 23 March, 2008 - 1:22pm

Chaetostomella

A Chaetostomella cf. undosa(Coquillett), the only NA species of the genus. Chaetorellia spp. are similar but always have a spot in the base of the presutural dorsocentral seta. Neither a spot, nor the seta. And a wing pattern is quite typical.

… Valery A. Korneyev, 23 March, 2008 - 9:43am

Thanks, Valery -

and all the way from Ukraine!
I see that Chaetostomella undosa occurs in OR, WY, and south to CO and CA (1 )

… Hartmut Wisch, 23 March, 2008 - 1:11pm

It is a Chaetorellia, and I g

It is a Chaetorellia, and I guess australis. Thye have a black spot at the apex of the scutellumm, but often the thorax is much more yellow and not as black as in the picture.

… Martin Hauser, 4 August, 2006 - 6:51pm

Thanks, Martin,

for the ID and clarification.

… Hartmut Wisch, 5 August, 2006 - 3:29pm

Chaetorellia species

Looks similar to two species: Chaetorellia australis (introduced from Europe to control yellow star-thistle), and C. acrolophi (introduced from Europe to several western states in 1992 to control spotted knapweed). More info here.

The wing pattern is a good match but both of those species show spots on the back of the thorax, whereas yours has stripes, so maybe yours is another species of Chaetorellia (?)
Both of the above are commonly called "peacock flies"; a third species (Chaetorellia succinea, shown on this page) is called the false peacock fly. It has a spotted thorax and a different wing pattern than your specimen.

… Robin McLeod, 26 July, 2005 - 12:12pm

Peacock fly

Thanks for your comments Robin. I have looked at Chaetorella and still think that the image on Diptera.info (see link above), though different in some respects, is a closer match.

… Hartmut Wisch, 26 July, 2005 - 1:14pm

I gotta disagree

Looked at the Diptera.info photo and it just doesn't look right. That photo doesn't have a black dot or a black hind border to the scutellum, which yours has. I suspect that, barring the opinion of a Tephritid expert, family ID may be as close as we can go.

… Ethan Friedman, 27 July, 2005 - 6:47am