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Zonosemata electa (Say)
Pepper maggot

Dorsal habitus, female and male.

Recognition
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This species, like other Zonosemata species, is mostly yellow with a few dark brown markings on the abdomen and usually the thorax. The scutum has three white stripes, including a medial one, and usually has dark brown postsutural markings (often somewhat U-shaped). The wing is mostly hyaline with 5 transverse bands in a "spider-mimic" pattern.

Zonosemata electa is most similar to Z. guybushi Norrbom. It differs from the other species of Zonosemata except Z. guybushi by the following combination of characters: wing bands moderately broad; radial cells and cell dm at most with small areas bare of microtrichia between discal and subapical bands; apical band not extended along vein M; only distal abdominal tergite with dark brown lateral spot; apical and subapical bands evenly developed, similar to discal band in color; accessory costal band variable, but not connected to subapical band; length of first flagellomere less than 0.7 times height of face; and scutum without presutural dark brown marks.

Zonosemata electa differs from Z. guybushi in having narrower and paler wing bands (the discal, subapical and apical bands are orange brown; the discal band is usually narrower than and at most 1.1 times as broad as the hyaline area between it and the subapical band measured along vein M). The subscutellum and mediotergite are usually entirely orange and there is usually a large nonmicrotrichose area in cell cu1. The katepisternum rarely has a dark brown spot (in less than 4% of specimens checked by Norrbom (1990)).

Benjamin (1934), Phillips (1946), Steyskal (1975), and White & Elson-Harris (1992) described the third stage larva.

Classification and Evolutionary Relationships
Order: Diptera. Family: Tephritidae. Subfamily: Trypetinae. Genus: Zonosemata. Species: electa. Author: Say.
Relationships among the species of Zonosemata have not been analyzed. Zonosemata electa may be most closely related to Zonosemata guybushi, which it closely resembles.

Names Used for this Species
Trypeta electa Say 1830: 185.
Spilographa electa: Loew 1873: 244, 329.
Trypeta (Spilographa) electa: Osten Sacken 1878: 190.
Zonosema electa: Coquillett 1899: 261.
Zonosemata electa: Benjamin 1934: 19.
Tephritis flavonotata Macquart 1855: 145; synonymy (Stone 1951: 45).
Zonosema flavonotata: Sturtevant 1925: 215.
Pepper maggot
Mouche du piment
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Type data
Trypeta electa: Neotype - Male (National Museum of Natural History (USNM)), designated by Norrbom 2002: 617. It bears the following labels: "USA: MARYLAND: Montgomery Co., Plummer's Island, 11.VIII.1988, A. L. Norrbom, on Solanum carolinense L.", "USNM ENT 00052480", [red] "NEOTYPE [male symbol] Trypeta electa Say, 1830 desig. Norrbom 2001", and "Zonosemata electa (Say) det. Norrbom 1988". The original syntypes, an unstated number of specimens from Indiana, like the rest of Say's Diptera types, were lost (Stone 1980: 35).
Tephritis flavonotata: Lectotype - Female (University Museum, Oxford (UMO)), designated by inference of holotype by Stone (1951: 45), USA: Maryland: Baltimore.

Distribution
Zonosemata electa is known from Canada & USA (Iowa, southern Ontario & Quebec, & Massachusetts, south to Texas & Florida).
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Biology
Like other species of Zonosemata, Z. electa breeds in fruits of species of Solanaceae. It has the broadest host range of any species of the genus and is the only species known to breed in host plants other than species of Solanum, but most of its recorded hosts are not native. Solanum carolinense L. (horse nettle), S. scabrum Mill. (= melanocerasum All.), and perhaps Physalis longifolia Nutt. var. subglabrata (Mack. & Bush) Cronquist are natural hosts. The record for P. longifolia var. subglabrata (Anon. 1959) is not well documented. The following exotic species have also been reported as hosts: Capsicum annum L. (= C. frutescens) (pepper), Lycopersicon esculentum Mill. (tomato), and Solanum aculeatissimum Jacq. and S. melongena L. (eggplant), including var. esculentum (Wasbauer 1972, Norrbom 1990, Smith & Bush 1999). A species of Rosa also has been reported (Hall 1938: 55), but this record is probably based on a misidentification of Rhagoletis basiola, which is superficially similar to Z. electa and which normally infests species of Rosa. The records for S. elaeagnifolium Cav. (silver-leaf nightshade) are also doubtful and probably pertain to Z. vittigera.
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Economic Significance
As indicated by its common name, pepper maggot, Z. electa is a sporadic but sometimes significant pest of peppers (Capsicum spp.), especially cherry peppers and green bell peppers, occasionally of eggplant, and rarely of tomato (Peterson 1923, Benjamin 1934, Anon. 1959). The larvae feed inside the developing fruit.
Management and control of this pest were studied by Burdette (1935), Foott (1963, 1967), and Boucher et al. (2001) and are discussed on the following sites:
Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station Fact Sheet, Pepper Maggot
University of Kentucky Entomology, Pepper Maggot in Kentucky
North Carolina State University Insect Note, Pepper Maggot

References
Key references are listed below. See fruit fly literature database for additional references.
Benjamin, F. H. 1934. Descriptions of some native trypetid flies with notes on their habits. U.S. Dep. Agric. Tech. Bull. 401: 95 p. [p.   , taxonomy, immature stages]
Boucher, T. J., R. A. Ashley, R. G. Adams & T. F. Morris. 2001. Effect of trap position, habitat, and height on the capture of pepper maggot flies (Diptera : Tephritidae). Journal of Economic Entomology 94: 455-461.
Burdette, R. C. 1935. The biology and control of the pepper maggot Zonosemata electa Say Trypetidae. N. J. Agric. Exp. Stn. Bull. 585: 1-31.
Bush, G. L. 1966. The genus Zonosemata, with notes on the cytology of two species. Psyche (Cambridge) (1965) 72: 307-323.
Foote, R. H. 1965. Family Tephritidae, p. 658-678. In A. Stone, C. W. Sabrosky, W. W. Wirth, R. H. Foote & J. R. Coulson, eds., A catalog of the Diptera of America north of Mexico. U.S. Dep. Agric. Agric. Handb. 276: 1696 p. [p.   , in catalog]
Foote, R. H., F. L. Blanc & A. L. Norrbom. 1993. Handbook of the fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) of America north of Mexico. Comstock Publishing Associates, Ithaca. xii + 571 p. [p.   , USA, references]
Foott, W. H. 1963. The biology and control of the pepper maggot, Zonosemata electa (Say) (Diptera: Trypetidae) in southwestern Ontario. Proc. Entomol. Soc. Ont. (1962) 93: 75-81.
Foott, W. H. 1967. The importance of Solanum carolinense L. as a host of the pepper maggot, Zonosemata electa (Say) (Diptera: Trypetidae) in southwestern Ontario. Proc. Entomol. Soc. Ont. 98: 16-18.
Hernández-Ortiz, V. 1989. Una especie nueva de Zonosemata (Díptera: Tephritidae) y clave de identificación de las especies del género. Anales del Instituto de Biologia, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Serie Zoologia 60: 205-210. [p. 207, in key]
Loew, H. 1873. Monographs of the Diptera of North America. Part III. Smithson. Misc. Collect. 11 (3 [= pub. 256]): vii + 351 + XIII p.
Norrbom, A. L. 1990. Notes on Zonosemata Benjamin (Diptera: Tephritidae) and the status of Cryptodacus scutellatus Hendel (= Z. ica Steyskal syn. n.). Annalen des Naturhistorischen Museums in Wien 91: 53-55.
Norrbom, A. L. 2002. A new species and key for the genus Zonosemata Benjamin (Diptera: Tephritidae). Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 104: 614-623. [p. 617, in key, neotype designation]
Norrbom, A. L., L. E. Carroll, F. C. Thompson, I. M. White & A. Freidberg. 1999. Systematic database of names, pp. 65-251. In F. C. Thompson (ed.), Fruit Fly Expert Identification System and Systematic Information Database. Myia 9, vii + 524 pp. & Diptera Data Dissemination Disk (CD-ROM) (1998) 1. [p. 249, in catalog]
Peterson, A. 1923. The pepper maggot, a new pest of peppers and eggplants. N. J. Agric. Exp. Stn. Bull. 373: 23 p.
Say, T. 1830. Descriptions of North American dipterous insects [concl.]. Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (1829) 6: 183-188.
Steyskal, G. C. 1975. Recognition characters for larvae of the genus Zonosemata (Diptera, Tephritidae). U. S. Department of Agriculture Cooperative Economic Insect Report 25 (12): 231-232. [larva]
Wasbauer, M. S. 1972. An annotated host catalog of the fruit flies of America north of Mexico (Diptera: Tephritidae). Occas. Pap. Calif. Dep. Agric. Bur. Entomol. 19: [i] + 172 p. [p.   , hosts]
White, I. M. & M. M. Elson-Harris. 1992. Fruit flies of economic significance: Their identification and bionomics. C A B International, Wallingford. xii + 601 p. [p. 399, review]