Since I now know what this guy is, I'll go out later this summer to the same spot with my better camera.
If I see it again - what is the proper protocol for collection? Since I am such a novice, I may prefer to just detail the exact location to a local expert...
Thanks

I made my own from a sheer curtain panel and a large-size fish landing net. You can see it in the photo on my bio page. You can also buy ready-made nets from BioQuip or other suppliers.

Once netted, flop the net over, mouth down, and put your open collecting jar inside the net. Trap the fly in the jar, pressing the mouth against the net until you can quickly place the lid on the jar.

You can kill the specimen in a variety of ways: drowning, scalding, freezing, or chemical means such as alcohol, dihydrogen cianide or ethyl acetate. Alternatively, you could march it into the entomology department somewhere still buzzing loudly inside the jar.

You should write your name, and where & when collected on a piece of paper to go with the specimen.

Thanks for sending me in the right direction.
I looked at the University of Florida website & found:
The Florida Bee Killer - Mallophora bomboides
Which I think this is. They show it as 40mm and don't list it in my county (Lake). I could swear it was even larger! But my memory could be playing tricks on me!

Hi sos940,

Your find of the Florida Bee Killer in Lake County won't be counted as an official county record because you did not collect and submit the specimen to some credentialed record keeper. However, it can be used as evidence by some researcher that the species does exist there.

Information like this almost always benefits from being traceable to a source, and you have given no means of being traced, let alone given no true name. That is strictly your business, but I encourage bugguide users to give reasonable contact info and a real name, at least on the profile page, in order to make the site a more thorough repository of observational and image data.

Let me address any privacy concerns:

If you clicked on Jim McClarin under this comment, it would take to straight to my profile page where you can see not only my real name, what I look like, what area I live in, and my email address, but a few things about me and a link to another site where, if you read Spanish, you could find out even more about me. Or you could open google, type in my name in quotes, hit search, and find hundreds of things written about me (and some by me). Despite this theoretical level of visibility, I find it to be an almost nil factor in my life. Only once in a rare while somebody will google me and contact me, and it has never been a problem.

I don't mean to single you out for this pitch for disclosure. In fact, I'll probably copy and paste parts of this from time to time in messages to other users who are incognito for who-knows-why.

And if you decide to ignore this pitch, we'll continue to appreciate your contributions :-)

I had no idea that any member of that genus got that big! I thought the genus Laphria contained the largest bee mimics. Learn something new every day:-) Thanks for sharing your find.

Is that HUGE fly is amazing! Hope I see one if I ever go over there!