Huge Fly - Xenox habrosus

It reminds me of some of the

It reminds me of some of the bee flies... but flies aren't my area. Hopefully a more expert person will give your more direction. But it does look to me like Xenox species, maybe Xenox delila?

the tiger bee fly is mostly Eastern US, so probably not that one.

Nina

… Nina, 30 May, 2008 - 7:33am

Xenox

looks likely, tigrinus seems similar in wing pattern

… margarethe brummermann, 30 May, 2008 - 8:28am

If I'm recalling correctly, t

If I'm recalling correctly, the pattern of spotting is less important with this group than is the veining pattern. I didn't look closely enough to see which pattern matches yours more clearly, but there were only 2 representatives of the delila group to look at.

… Nina, 30 May, 2008 - 9:41am

This is certainly Xenox. I believe X. tigrinus occurs farther east. It looks a lot like X. habrosus, which was once regarded as a race of X. simson, but apparently no longer. The wing pattern looks wrong for delila. Another choice would be xylocopae, but off hand, I can't recall the range of that one. There are not many species in this genus.

… Andy Calderwood, 30 May, 2008 - 1:09pm

Xenox

According to Marston's (1970) revision X. xylocopae occurs from Texas to Arizona in the U.S., and has the crossvein between veins R2+3 and R4 incomplete and less than twice the length of crossvein r-m, while X. habrosus has the crossvein complete or at least twice the length of crossvein r-m. This has a complete crossvein, and so should be X. habrosus.

… Joel Kits, 2 June, 2008 - 1:03pm

Thank you for the detailed information

so it will stay with habrosus

… margarethe brummermann, 2 June, 2008 - 1:17pm

Thanks Nina and Andy

I've put those wings together for comparison. Habrosus also has the same bodymarkings as my fly. H Wirsch seems to indicate that X xylocopae is not a western spec. I've tried the ITIS report but didn't get anywhere. I think I put it on the X habrosus page.

… margarethe brummermann, 30 May, 2008 - 8:04pm