Characteristics
Sobarocephala latifrons is characterised by a hooked surstylus and a strong medial brown stripe on the scutellum that is sometimes darkest apically, never basally. Several rarely-encountered species with a more coastal/southern distribution have a similarly-striped scutellum.

Similar species
The two other species with a medially brown scutellum are Sobarocephala pengellyi and S. wirthi. Sobarocephala pengellyi is known from Alabama and Georgia and has brown (not black) bristles, female tergites 2-4 are yellow with a thin medial stripe, female tergite 6 is entirely brown (not brown laterally), the face is often light brown to orange (not yellow) and the epandrium is entirely brown.

Sobarocephala wirthi is found along the coastal states from New Jersey to the Florida panhandle, and differs from S. latifrons in having a rounded (not hook-like) surstylus and somewhat different colouration: the postpronotum is sometimes brown (always yellow in S. latifrons), the female abdomen never has a brown medial stripe and the epandrium never has a brown basal spot.

Sobarocephala texensis and some S. setipes also have a medial stripe on the scutellum, but these spots are ill-defined and darkest medially or anteriorly (not apically). Furthermore, the stripe of S. texensis extends anteriorly onto the scutum, and those specimens of S. setipes with a medial spot are also strongly bivittate.

Distribution
Sobarocephala latifrons
is known mostly from the eastern United States from Illinois to Georgia, although records from eastern Texas suggest a much broader range. In Canada it is recorded from southern Ontario and Ottawa, but is not known from the Bruce Peninsula despite intensive collecting efforts in that part of Ontario.

Biology
Specimens are regularly collected at dung, which may serve as a meeting place for adults in search of mates. The above photo was taken at carnivore dung in southern Ontario, where over a dozen males swarmed a newly-arrived female. None of the complex pre-mating behaviour characteristic of clusiodine species was observed. Copulating S. setipes have also been seen on dung in Ontario, but only in the absence of other males.