Fruit Flies

Adult tephritid flies are typically patterned with dark markings on clear or banded wings and are smaller than house flies. Larvae are legless, creamy-white maggots found feeding inside fruit, and are usually detected by cutting open suspect fruit rather than by seeing adults directly.

Early external signs include small, discoloured puncture marks (oviposition stings) on the fruit surface, sometimes followed by resin or fluid oozing from the site.

Females insert eggs just beneath the fruit skin; larvae hatch and feed within the fruit through several instars, then drop to the soil to pupate. Adults emerge from the soil to mate and seek new host fruit, and multiple generations can occur across a fruiting season in warm climates.

Larval feeding breaks down fruit tissue, often allowing secondary decay organisms to enter, and heavily infested fruit softens, discolours, and drops prematurely. Damage frequently is not visible from the outside until infestation is advanced.

Host crops include mango, orange, cucumber, and olive, along with many other fruiting and cucurbit crops, with the specific species and host range varying by region.

Traps baited with food or pheromone lures are widely used to detect adult flies and track population trends ahead of and during fruit ripening, supporting decisions on timing and area-wide programmes.

Fruit fly management typically combines several tactics, often coordinated at an area-wide scale because adults are mobile between orchards and host plants.

• Use trapping and lures to monitor and, where appropriate, mass-trap adult flies
• Collect and destroy fallen and infested fruit to break the larval-to-pupal cycle
• Conserve parasitoid wasps and other natural enemies
• Follow quarantine and phytosanitary requirements for fruit movement where these pests are regulated