My son saw this insect and wanted to know what it was. I took one look and said, "wasp." I took a closer look and started to have doubts. I did some searching and found that this is a black soldier fly, aka a privy fly. They are known to hang out around bathrooms, port-a-potties and places with animal waste. They are also known for being confused with wasps. There are things you can look for to tell the difference.
The head
The head of a fly and the head of a wasp are slightly different. Flies have larger head to body ratio than wasps. The wasp head looks more sleek, while the fly has these large bulky eyes. The first link below is a fly head, the second is a wasp head.
The halteres
Another feature that makes it seem this is a fly is the number of wings it has. This specimen has a single set if wings, which can be inferred from the presence of a haltere (a stub of a wing) that is below the folded wings. Wasps have two sets of wings and no halteres. Flies have a single set of wings and a set of halteres (a vestigial structure of their double-pair-of-wings evolutionary past.
The real final evidence that convinced me was how much this guy (or gal, though I suspect this was the male because there was a larger specimen three feet up from this one) looked like the pictures from this website: http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/livestock/black_soldier_fly.htm .
I had a great time trying to puzzle this one out. It's a great example of biomimicry.
Extra credit: explain why biomimicry is beneficial to a species and give examples.
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