Thank you Aaron for your comment. And the Stiletto Fly is on a rare Orcutt's Yellow Pincushion flower (Chaenactis glabriuscula var orcuttiana) that was discovered on the Venice remnant dune site where the City of Los Angeles was going to install a pedestrian trail until the rare dune flower discovery forced a delay and changes in the project.

Glad to learn the Nebritus and Chaenactis g. var orcuttiana still have at least a wee bit of turf there. I lived in Playa del Rey as a kid, until we had to move when all the housing between LAX and the beach was condemned and demolished. Now that strip has apparently reverted to fairly good coastal scrub habitat :-) And I guess Ballona Creek still has some good habitat too.

I love (and miss) the greater LA area! If only our foolish species could get a handle on its grotesquely out of balance population with its concomitant destructive environmental impacts...that region was a total natural wonderland with coastal, high mountain, and desert biomes and thousands of different combinations of landform, mineral substrate, vegetation type, macro- and micro-habitats and their diverse flora & fauna. Still a lot left, but also a lot gone...and going, like most everywhere else.

I sent the image to Mike Irwin who says it is in fact Nebritus powelli.

Thanks for the link. Could this be in the genus Nebritus?

but I can't say for sure. Let's wait and see what the pros have to say.