It's always flies I need help identifying

[urbpan]

This dead one I'm 99 percent sure is an Aedes mosquito, the genus that includes Asian tiger mosquitoes and yellow fever mosquitoes, and is notorious for biting in daylight hours and flying for miles to do so.  I think they also lay eggs in dry places that will be wet, and the eggs hatch when it rains.  It's the groovy black and white pattern that makes me think so.

But the live one I'm holding in the first picture is indistinct to me, since I don't know what to look for.  Any help, entomologists?

Comments

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

The C. pipiens species complex is very much a ubiquitous, native pest. Anywhere there's dirty, stagnant water, you'll find them. They don't seem to travel far from their point of origin unless pressed. Although the various members of the complex are very hard to separate, you've almost certainly got C. p. pipiens, sinc you're so far north.

C. p. pipiens is commonly called the Northern House Mosquito. It's an effecient transmitter of a variety of encephalites, and is probably the most important bridge vector between birds and humans.

Some good info from Marin/Sonoma
And one from Rutgers