This is the Large Milkweed Bug I've been seeing on my Tropical Milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) the past couple of months:


The Milkweed is covered in Aphids again too:

Or maybe "A" is some sort of sawfly, which isn't really a fly but a wasp.
http://www.pbase.com/tmurray74...

btw Lin, those are great pics of the milkweed bug... Ugh with those aphids! I had them all over my wild arugula so bad I pulled it up and disposed of it!

Moonhowl said:Could it possibly be a fly from the Ulidiidae Family....called the Picture -winged Flies?

http://bugguide.net/node/view/...

Great eye!!! I think you got it! I went to the page you referred to and http://bugguide.net/node/view/... sure looks like it

Moonhowl said:Could it possibly be a fly from the Ulidiidae Family....called the Picture -winged Flies?

http://bugguide.net/node/view/...

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://bugguide.net/node/view/...

And thanks OldGardener for your help, also.

Moonhowl did great! Now, just one more to go.....

wildflowers said:Good IDing OldGardener! I'll have to keep an eye out here to see if I have the same.

Here is one of my most interesting characters in the garden. It's a Robberfly, although I don't recall which one off hand (Janet ID'd it). I'll have to get back on the name. He kind of looks like a bee on first glance but he's never looking for pollen or nectar, he's looking for other insects. I call this one 'Thug'. He can be found lurking around the flowering plants, waiting for his next victim.

Your robberfly looks like it's wearing Louis Vuitton sunglasses.

A very stylish bee for sure.

Yeah, he does wear nice sunglasses! and he doesn't like his picture taken!
I think he's a robberfly Laphria

Oh Christine, what a great photo.
How do you get these shots? What camera and settings are you using?

Lynn, you are too kind! Mostly I get lucky after lots and lots of pictures!

Although, I have a better record since getting this camera.
It's a Coolpix L120 - using the close-up option. I also recently discovered there is an (on-off for macro) which I have turned "on" all the time. I'm not exactly sure where that is I tried to show my dh what I had discovered and never found it again. He wasn't surprised.

Well that camera is awesome, just like your photos.

Great pix Christine. That is a real "Dr. John" Robber Fly

You are most welcome Dormantsrule. Happy to help.

That's pretty funny Moon, Dr. John Robber Fly!

What are all these bitty little pollinators? They are mobbing one of my sedums, while the one right next to it seems to be left to the honeybees. I did take one photo with both the mystery bug and a honeybee so you can get perspective of size.

@JRsbugs is really good at identifying insects.
It almost looks like one of the tiny leaf cutter bees.

Deb, could it be a Halictid Bee? The 4 top photos at: http://www.dereila.ca/bugs06/p... are of these type of bees - #1 looks really similar.

It sure does look like Deb's bee.

My ears were burning, my name was mentioned!

Halictid bee is probable, in the first photo there's a fly on the right which looks like a syrphid, Syritta pipiens.

The others in the first photo could almost be anything in the Halictidae family, there's many more bees in the US than we have here and ours can be difficult enough. We have around 280 species, you have something around 3,000 with many looking much like one another.

http://bugguide.net/node/view/...

Then there are other small bees around 6mm which look similar, Hylaeus is one in the family Colletidae, many are black and some have yellow markings on the legs and face.

http://bugguide.net/node/view/...

The bee in the last photo looks like either Lasioglossum or Halictus, we have Lasioglossum morio which is a group covering more than one species, and Halictus tumulorum which look much alike.

Then, there are the parasitoids such as Sphecodes which use the host bees to breed in, they are impossible to separate without a specimen, some are all black while most have red on the abdomen.

http://bugguide.net/node/view/...

Thanks all, and particularly JR for the helpful links and information. To keep my life simple, I'll just call these guys sweat bees and let them continue pollinating my garden. It was interesting that there were so many of them on one sedum, and the other sedum was similarly covered with honeybees. I wonder if there was something territorial going on, or if one bug just preferred Autumn Joy over Munstead?