Unknown Fly (?) - Exoprosopa dorcadion

Moved

Moved from Bee Flies.

… John F. Carr, 11 September, 2009 - 6:43am

Moved

Moved from ID Request.

… John F. Carr, 7 September, 2009 - 9:01pm

Bee Fly

It looks like a close relative of this one:

… John F. Carr, 7 September, 2009 - 6:10pm

Bee Fly

Thanks for the Bee Fly hint. I looked up Bee Fly on the net and I found Bombyliidae Xenox tigrinus which, I think, is the species in your pic. My specimen doesn't quite match the wing pattern but perhaps there are variations in wing pattern in the same species?

… Clifford Powell, 7 September, 2009 - 7:45pm

Probably not Xenox

The wing pattern doesn't look like X. tigrinus (most thumbnails here are clickable so you can see the full size and species info, btw). This looks close:

We may need an expert on the family to say for sure.

… John F. Carr, 7 September, 2009 - 8:04pm

Bee Fly

As far as I can tell Exoprosopa dorcadion is a match. The expertise on this WEB site is incredible. Thanks to all for the help.

… Clifford Powell, 7 September, 2009 - 8:58pm

Good call. This is E. dorcadion. It is very widespread in cool mountain or coastal locales throughout the West.

… Andy Calderwood, 10 September, 2009 - 9:47pm

On second look, E. dorcadion is right.

I fell into the trap of ignoring my own advice and looking too much at the body. In all of these I've seen, the light "stripe" that runs across the wings coincides with one across the body. Now I see that's not always the case.

Glad you're having a good experience here, and you haven't even reached the really heavy-hitter fly folks yet! Generally speaking, post to Flies if you know you have a fly, and you can go right to Bee Flies if you're sure you have one of those.

How-to info on moving posts, etc., is found at the Help tab. I'd guess John will move this one to species for you (he's already put it in Bee Flies), but if you want to try yourself, let us know here if you need any assistance. For your convenience, a link's below:

http://bugguide.net/node/view/95253/bgimage

Note that we have but a handful of images on this species and that yours is the first from New Mexico. We look forward to your future posts!

… Ron Hemberger, 7 September, 2009 - 9:12pm

Please move your post to Bee Flies for expert attention.

Definitely not Xenox tigrinus. While Exoprosopa is a good candidate, we don't seem to have any here like yours. If you're looking for a match on your own, start with wing patterns, as John suggested.

… Ron Hemberger, 7 September, 2009 - 8:47pm

Moving Post

I've only been on this site for a couple of days and I haven't a clue as to the method of moving a post. I have no problem with someone else doing it if that helps with the organization of data on this site.

… Clifford Powell, 7 September, 2009 - 9:01pm

… Ron Hemberger, 7 September, 2009 - 8:46pm