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Home » Guide » Arthropods (Arthropoda) » Insects (Insecta) » Flies (Diptera) » Aschiza » Syrphid Flies (Syrphidae) » Eristalinae » Eristalini » Eristalis
Photo#42396
Eristalis sp. - Eristalis - male
Copyright © 2006 Hartmut Wisch

Eristalis sp. - Eristalis - Male
Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Gardens, Claremont, Los Angeles County, California, USA
January 12, 2006
Feeding on Encelia californica (California Encelia).

I'm submitting this through ID Request in the hope that someone will come closer than the genus. It shows a black stripe from mouth to antenna (see next image), with a dark triangular spot above. Therefore, I believe E. arbustorum is excluded. E. dimidiata seems somewhat similar.
An Eristalis I photographed last year on Mt. Pinos, and whose ID is still not clear beyond the genus (see 1,2,3 ), looks to me like the same species, whatever that is.

Images of this individual: tag all
Eristalis sp. - Eristalis - male Eristalis sp. - Eristalis - male Eristalis sp. - Eristalis - male
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Contributed by Hartmut Wisch on 8 February, 2006 - 4:53pm
Last updated 13 February, 2006 - 11:34pm

Oh, and it is not dimidiata,
Oh, and it is not dimidiata, because this species has a longer pterostigma and most important is has black hairs on the thorax just above the wings and on the scutellum, and one of your pictures shows clearly the complete yellow hairs on the thorax...
But it could still be E. stipator, which has the hairs in the middle of segment 4 (the 3 visible segment) not straight upwards, but crossing each other. And in the picture it is not clear, but it looks a bit like the hairs in the middle of this segment are crisscrossing each other - so maybe it is stipator...
Cheers
Martin
… Martin Hauser, 13 February, 2006 - 2:24pm login or register to post comments

 
Thanks so much, Martin,
Thanks so much, Martin, for all of your valuable information. So it may be E. hirta or possibly E. stipator, with the caviat that an actual specimen would yield more information.
… Hartmut Wisch, 13 February, 2006 - 11:31pm login or register to post comments

Eristalis species ID
This is a very difficult group of species to ID from a picture only. But I'm quite sure that this is a male of E. hirta, which is one of the more common species. The characters which support this identification are: wings clear without a brown band (like in rupium or obscura), hind tarsus uniform black and not yellow and black (like in obscura and rupium), antenna black instead of orange (like in obscura or less in interrupta), hairs on dorsal part of eyes brown and not yellowish, pterostigma very short (not like rupium). I hope that helps.
Martin
… Martin Hauser, 13 February, 2006 - 2:18pm login or register to post comments

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