---

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

---

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

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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

---

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.

---

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.

---

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

---

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