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14 May 2007, New Brunswick, Canada. Length: 11mm. Can anyone place it into a Genus or hopefully a species?

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What a beauty! Can't really help you, but the head profile reminds me of European Criorhina.

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Thanks Nigel, a place for me to start. I checked a NA reference and we have 14 spp. of Criohina. These are described as having long hairs and mimicking bumblebees - so doesn't fit.

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It does look more than a little like the male of the very rare syrphid Chalcosyrphus jacobsoni. But your specimen is a female. So I guess it is one of the nearctic xylotine syrphids.

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Thanks Kahis, another place for me to look. I found quite a few images on North American Xylotine syrphids including Chalcosyrphus spp., but nothing looked close to this specimen.:(

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To me it looks closer to Ferdinandea cuprea - I'll upload a photo to the gallery in a few minutes.

PS: Sorry, just realised I can upload it here too :)

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For comparison, here's a quick & dirty photo of a female jacobsoni. As you see, it is close, but not quite the same species. C. jacobsoni males have glossy spots and stripes like your fly.

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We have 1 sp. in NA F. buccata that has many synonyms and apparently is a very variable species. The images I have seen of it are not quite right for my specimen. I have asked a NA expert to look at the images - hope he replies.

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Certainly looks like the same genus. Please see my comment above to Chris.

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Thanks everyone for your help. I just heard back from the Syrphid specialist at the Canadian National Collection, he says it is most likely a Chalcosyrphus (Xylotomima) sp. but he did not recognize the species.

Now identified as Chalcosyrphus (Xylotomima) metallifera, an early Spring species