Tep*hritis, right? Nope - Trupanea nigricornis

Another vote for trupanea

The posterior pair of scutellar bristles can sometimes be very small, and both genera lay eggs on flower heads, so teasing apart genera and then species can be tricky. Another area to look at is that Tephritis will usually have one preapical dorsal seta on the hind femur and will usually have more dark pigmentation in cell SC.

… cgibbs, 7 February, 2007 - 1:19pm

Nice addition.

Thanks :-)

… Ron Hemberger, 7 February, 2007 - 3:55pm

Trupanea not Tephritis

Good job with the wings, the wing pattern is very important and helps a lot!. The other thing I wished to see was the scutellum, cause in Tephritis they have 2 pairs of setae, while Trupanea has only one pair... Otherwise the wings are very similar...
But thanks to the excellent wing wpictures, I'm rather confident to call this one Trupanea nigricornis.

… Martin Hauser, 7 February, 2007 - 12:51pm

Thanks for the ID and the move, Martin.

When I started taking pictures of fruit flies, I thought there were just two and that they differed solely by wing pattern. Well, I'm getting an education. I'll keep looking closely at and shooting these insects - and hope to have my hot new lens soon.

… Ron Hemberger, 7 February, 2007 - 1:07pm