Conopinae - unident - Physocephala tibialis

Moved

Moved from Conopinae.

Infuscated discal cell and other characters point to P. tibialis here, which is very common in your area.

But I think this is two males, rather than a male and a female. The one on the bottom (right) appears to lack the theca (flap on bottom of 5th sternite) which would make it a male. And in Conopidae, males mount females from above to mate, so...although the dorsal view of the individual on the top (left) precludes seeing whether it has a theca or not...it's a pretty good bet that it's also a male.

Male conopids, either in their eagerness to mate, or perhaps to drive off rivals, often pounce on other males. There are many posts of two conopids on BugGuide where the poster indicated a male/female pair, but in fact it was 2 (or even 3!) males:

So I'm editing the previously indicated ♂ ♀ to simply ♂ here.

(Rich, if you have other images or info clearly indicating one of these was a female...i.e. had a clearly evident theca...then please change it back to ♂ ♀.)

… Aaron Schusteff, 31 July, 2015 - 1:05pm

Thanks for your help. You le

Thanks for your help.
You learn something new every day, in this case about the overly eager males. I had, in fact, seen that John Lampkin photo, but did not drill down into the comments. He's not too far from here, but I don't know him. About an hour plus two major bridges - might as well be Mars.
No, all of the shots pretty much look the same. When I moved for better placement, they flew off.

… Rich Kelly, 31 July, 2015 - 4:31pm