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Walnut Husk Fly

Chaetopsis sp.

Photo by Dan Doucette
Published on Project Noah
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43.0904, -79.0861

Field Notes

Description:

about 1cm, black and clear striped wings

Habitat:

urban

Notes:

I spotted this fly on my house.

Species ID Suggestions

Walnut husk fly

Rhagoletis completa

Reference Link
AmberLundeen
1

Comments (10)
KeithRoragen
Nope. And for the record, I am not going out on a limb to claim it is Chaetopsis, only that it is worth considering. I'll stick to giving positive ID's for things with big, bold color patterns.
Dan Doucette
Thanks a lot Keith for the added input. I think you are right, really matches with Chaetopsis. Any idea of species?
KeithRoragen
To throw another wrench in to R. Completa, BugGuide, which is fairly well covered in the Northeast, lists no recorded occurrences east of the Mississippi and nothing east of the Rockies and north of Arkansas. There are other Ragoletes species recorded in the Northeast, but you might consider other groups such as Chaetopsis in the Ulidiidae. http://bugguide.net/node/view/87007
Dan Doucette
Thanks Amber and Doryreed. We are very close on this but I'm going to put this as just a species of Rhagoletis and put in my notes that it is possibly R. completa.
Doryreed
This is certainly a Rhagoletis species but I agree with @dandoucette. The eyes are not the same and the thorax is the wrong colour. Rhagoletis completa doesn't have the bronze metallic colour. That said I can't seem to find a closer match and it is very close. :)
AmberLundeen
I was looking at that and I think they are iridescent and they could appear green or red depending on the lighting or angle - the photo at this link kinda shows what I mean http://bugguide.net/node/view/130847
Dan Doucette
I think you have it Amber, I'm going to go with your ID, but just wanted to mention that the photo in your link and the ones I see online have green eyes where this has red eyes. Do you think it could be something different? The wings are a definite match.

Spotted for Missions

Mission
WILD Cities: Urban Biodiversity

Tags

Photographed
PublishedAugust 10, 2011

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