Anastrepha Main | Tephritidae Main | Diptera Home | SEL Home

Anastrepha pulchra Stone

Dorsal habitus, female.

Recognition
Click here for full description and more images
Anastrepha pulchra is one of three species of the serpentina group with the C- and S-bands broadly fused so that there is no hyaline area in the middle of cell br. It differs from the other two species, A. pulchella Norrbom and A. anomoiae Norrbom, in having a triangular brown mark on the orbital plate, and narrower, more elongate, yellow medial areas on the posterior margins of abdominal tergites 3 and 4, and in the male, cells bm and dm entirely infuscated. The aculeus tip is 0.33-0.46 long (shorter than in A. anomoiae, longer than in A. pulchella), and entirely nonserrate. The marginal hyaline spot in cell r1 is elongated along the costa, and its apex is aligned with or distal to crossvein R-M; it is aligned with R-M in A. anomoiae and proximal to it in A. pulchella. See Recognition for A. pulchella and A. anomoiae for additional differences.

Classification and Evolutionary Relationships
Order: Diptera. Family: Tephritidae. Genus: Anastrepha. Species: pulchra. Author: Stone.
Relationships among the species of Anastrepha were analyzed by Norrbom et al. (1999) and McPheron et al. (1999). Click here for more detailed discussion of Anastrepha phylogeny. Anastrepha pulchra has been placed in the serpentina species group. Norrbom (2002) analyzed the relationships among the species of the serpentina group (see Phylogeny of the Anastrepha serpentina group) and considered Anastrepha pulchra to be most closely related to A. anomoiae Norrbom.

Names Used for this Species
Anastrepha pulchra Stone 1942: 26.
Click here for more detailed synonymy
Click here to link to fly names database

Type Data
Holotype - Female (National Museum of Natural History (USNM), USNM00052984)), PANAMA: Panamá: La Campana, 2 May 1939, J. Zetek 4361.

Distribution
Anastrepha pulchra is known from Panama, Venezuela (Aragua and Bolivar), and Brazil (Amazonas) (Stone 1942, Caraballo 1981, Norrbom 2002).
Click here for map
Click here for specimen data

Biology
The biology of A. pulchra is poorly known. The only reported host plant is an undetermined species of Sapotaceae (Caraballo 1981).

Economic Significance
Anastrepha pulchra is not considered a pest species.

Comments
The wing illustration in Stone (1942, Pl. 2C) is of A. pulchella. The two males from Venezuela examined by Norrbom (2002) have the section of vein M between R-M and DM-Cu short, but the females are within the range of the other specimens for this character. The aculeus tip of the single Venezuelan female dissected has the tip slightly less tapered basally than in other females. The Brazilian female has the longest aculeus tip, although it is among the shortest in oviscape and aculeus length.

References
Key references are listed below. See fruit fly literature database for additional references.
Caraballo, J. 1981. Las moscas de frutas del genero Anastrepha Schiner, 1868 (Diptera: Tephritidae) de Venezuela. M.S. thesis, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Maracay. 210 pp. [Venezuela]
Norrbom, A. L. 2002. A revision of the Anastrepha serpentina species group (Diptera: Tephritidae). Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 104: 390-436. [p. 418, revision]
Norrbom, A. L. Host plant database for Anastrepha and Toxotrypana (Diptera: Tephritidae: Toxotrypanini). Diptera Data Dissemination Disc 2 (in press). [host database]
Norrbom, A. L., L. E. Carroll, F. C. Thompson, I. M. White & A. Freidberg. 1999a. Systematic database of names, pp. 65-251. In F. C. Thompson (ed.), Fruit Fly Expert Identification System and Systematic Information Database. Myia (1998) 9, vii + 524 pp. & Diptera Data Dissemination Disk (CD-ROM) (1998) 1. [in catalog]
Norrbom, A. L., R. A. Zucchi & V. Hernández-Ortiz. 1999b. Phylogeny of the genera Anastrepha and Toxotrypana (Trypetinae: Toxotrypanini) based on morphology, p. 299-342. In M. Aluja & A. L. Norrbom, eds., Fruit flies (Tephritidae): Phylogeny and evolution of behavior. CRC Press, Boca Raton. [16] + 944 p. [phylogeny]
Stone, A. 1942. The fruitflies of the genus Anastrepha. U. S. Dept. Agric. Misc. Publ. No. 439, 112 pp. [p. 29, description, Panama]