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bonitin Gent, Belgium(Zone 8a) Oct 24, 2006

number 2: a type of wasp

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kennedyh Churchill, Victoria, Australia(Zone 10a) Oct 24, 2006

That is not a wasp, it has only one pair of wings and in your image you can see the halteres, the little club-like organs that replace the hind wings in the flies (Diptera).
I have tried to get closer, but so far am unable even to suggest which family of flies it belongs to,
Ken

This message was edited Oct 25, 2006 8:15 AM

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kennedyh Churchill, Victoria, Australia(Zone 10a) Oct 25, 2006

I think I have tracked this one down now. It is a Crane Fly (family Tipulidae), and the species is Ctenophora flaveolata http://ip30.eti.uva.nl/ccw/pictures.php

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bonitin Gent, Belgium(Zone 8a) Oct 25, 2006

Kennedyh, I'm sure you're right! This is definitely the one!
In the mean time I had done some research by myself and found in one of my bug books,( I found back after being lost), one which looks at first sight the same : Allantus scrophulariae (fam.:Tenthredinidae).
The bodies of these two really look exactly the same, but after a closer examination I noticed that the head shapes were different and that the one you found is the real match!
For me as an amateur it is a mystery how two species which have such a great similarity can belong to different families.

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kennedyh Churchill, Victoria, Australia(Zone 10a) Oct 25, 2006

The one you found is certainly very similar, but it is a Sawfly, which although it has fly in the name is not a fly at all, but a type of wasp and therefore has a complete set of four wings.
There are a lot of cases of close matches across unrelated families. Sometimes this is an evolved mimicry, giving a harmless creature like a fly, the protection of appearing to be a wasp that might be dangerous.

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claypa West Pottsgrove, PA(Zone 6b) Oct 25, 2006

I thought was a fly at first, too, because of the lack of a joint between the abdomen and thorax. Ran accross a Crane fly that was vaguely similar...but not enough to follow that trail. There's lots of flies that mimic bees and wasps, even a few beetles. What really surprised me was finding wasps that mimic flies!!

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