Fruit fly interception, Sri Lanka to Seychelles

April 2017. Last week our border control section intercepted a consignment of tomatoes from Sri Lanka which was infested with larvae. We do have two fruit fly species in Seychelles, namely Ceratitis capitataand Zeugodacus cucurbitae.

These flies look like a different species and we are suspecting IMG_090628 is Bactrocera tau. Any help with identification would be much appreciated.

The images were sent to Glenn Bellis who kindly wrote: “IMG_090628 certainly looks like B. tau (or is it Z. tau these days?). I can’t find any reference to tau either being in Sri Lanka or attacking solanaceae (tomato) so am not so sure that is the species. I don’t have my White & Elson Harris book here with me in Timor so can’t check what tau look-alikes might attack tomatoes. None of the species listed as tomato pests in Allwood et al. SE Asian pest species look like this specimen.

“The other photo is not great but could be a teneral version of the specimen in IMG_20170410_09062.

“For the purposes of Seychelles quarantine, the specimen in IMG_090628 is definitely neither of the species known from there (C. capitata and B. (Z.) cucurbitae), so should be regarded as an exotic species”.