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I initially thought this would be a Delia but it lacks hairs under the scutellum. It instead keys out to Chirosia using the Manual of the Nearctic Diptera Anthomyiidae key. Whether that's correct depends, in part, on my correctly interpreting the bristles of the hind tibiae as including a "robust apical posteroventral bristle". There does appear to be a bristle there but it's not exactly "robust".

found in a Maryland USA botanic garden. body ~4mm

Thanks in advance for the help

Steve







dorsal view of whole right wing; ventral view of the area surrounding the costal break showing sparse ventral bristles on the costa












posterior view of right hind tibia

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Hi Steve.
I checked 2 males of Delia florilega I found at home. Males of Delia florilega are unmistakable because of chaetotaxy of t3 and tar2-1, correct?
Well, both my males have hairs under scutellum!

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Hi Nikita,
Thanks for checking your Delia specimens. I think that Nearctic Delia also are supposed to have hairs under the scutellum but my knowledge of anthomyiids is like my knowledge of muscids – very thin :-)

Regards
Steve

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Steve, my knowledge of Anthomyiid is very limited as well. However:
1. D. florilega is Nearctic (see: https://fauna-eu.org/cdm_dataportal/taxon/b4333247-2984-43df-98c2-23c0edefec45 )
2. Even Dr.Ackland, even for rather small British fauna limited himself by key for males only.

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Griffiths wrote keys to species for females, but he died before he could write the key to genera. If you know what genus it is in his classification you have a chance of identifying species. You may need to extrude the ovipositor to look at forms of tergites and sternites of the postabdomen.

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Or take one leg and make barcode of COI (not too expencive now) and compare with that of D. platura (http://v3.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_SearchTerms?query=%22Delia%20platura%22[tax]) and/or other Delia

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Thanks Nikita and John. I'll see if I still have the specimen. I'n really not sure which genus it is.

Regards
Steve