Found this one sitting on a very active "bee hotel" built for leaf-cutter bees. I spent the better part of an hour picking chaetodactylid mites off of it and still didn't get them all. (examples here and here)

Keys out to Chrysura using the 1980 Bohart & Kimsey key (1) and then to C. kyrae using Kimsey's 2006 key to the chrysids of California (2). That key is missing one Nearctic species, C. martia, which can be excluded by its red abdomen as originally described by Patton. The 2nd couplet of the Kimsey key compares interocellar distance to ocellocular distance (IOD "equal to or slightly less" than OOD vs. IOD "considerably less than" OOD (with the latter leading towards C. kyrae)). I used a graduated eyepiece reticle to determine the IOD/OOD for this specimen is 0.67.

C. kyrae and C. pacifica are supposed to be extremely similar with Kimsey's key distinguishing between them by the ratio of the subantennal distance to the interantennal distance ("more than 1.5X" in C. pacifica, "less than or equal to 1.5x" in C. kyrae). Krombein's original description of C. kyrae from Maryland specimens gives a subantennal distance/interantennal distance ratio of 1.2. Measuring these distances from the head-on image, I get a ratio of 1.1 (measuring the subantennal distance to the edge of the green area of the clypeus as described in the Kimsey key and on Discover Life). It's worth noting that this individual is definitely on the large side for this genus (with the exception of C. tota which is a western species.)

TIA

•larger version here

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Update: Confirmed as C. kyrae by Dr. Lynn Kimsey,, UC Davis "I agree that it is Chrysura kyrae. Its bigger than most but matches the pertinent characters."