CLOSED: Help Identifying these insects to family

Alkalikitty Victoria, Canada Oct 20, 2013

I am trying to make up an insect collection and have to label them to family.
For the first one, I tried looking up the diptera families but I am having a lot of trouble.

The second one kind of looks like a wasp but the abdomen is flattened (I am not sure if this happened during capture or if it is actually like this)

I have no clue about the third and fourth ones. they were provided and were caught in a malaise (sp?) trap years ago. The last one I am thinking is a kind of wasp due to what loooks like a 'wasp waist' but I kinda suck at identifying

I live in Western Canada if that helps...Any help would be greatly appreciated

Thank you very much

Post #9690092

Quote

Flapdoodle Minot, ND Oct 20, 2013

The first one is a calypterate muscoid fly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calyptratae), but the characters needed for a confident family i.d. cannot be seen in this specimen � it might be either a sarcophagid or a tachinid�

The second one is in the family Syrphidae (flower/hover flies).

The third one might be another muscoid fly, but the defining family characters cannot be seen.

The fourth one appears to be a parasitic wasp in the family Ichneumonidae.