Bactrocera (Bactrocera) verbascifoliae Drew & Hancock, 1994

Drew, R. A. I., Romig, M. C. & Dorji, C., 2007, Records Of Dacine Fruit Flies And New Species Of Dacus (Diptera: Tephritidae) In Bhutan, Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 55 (1), pp. 1-21 : 5-6

Bactrocera (Bactrocera) verbascifoliae Drew & Hancock

Bactrocera (Bactrocera) verbascifoliae Drew & Hancock, 1994: 64 ; Norrbom et al., 1998: 96. Holotype female in BMNH.

Material examined. – BHUTAN: 3 males, Phuentsholing , 10 km, 10 Jun.2000, coll. S. Thapa ; 1 male, Phuentsholing , 13 May.2000, coll. S. Thapa PQI ; 1 male, Rimchu , 17 May.2001, coll. R. Drew & M. Romig ; 2 males, Samdrup Jongkhar District, 15 Nov.2004, coll. S. Wangdi. All specimens attracted to methyl eugenol. Specimens in NPPC and QDPI .

Diagnosis. – Face fulvous with a pair of medium size circular black spots; scutum with base colour black, postpronotal lobes and notopleura yellow, mesopleural stripe reaching midway between anterior margin of notopleuron and anterior npl. seta dorsally, a pair of narrow parallel sided lateral postsutural vittae ending at ia. seta, medial postsutural vitta absent; setae: sc. 2; prsc. 2; ia. 1; p.sa. 1; a.sa. 1; mpl. 1; npl. 2; scp. 4; scutellum yellow except for a narrow black basal band; legs with femora entirely fulvous, fore tibiae pale fuscous, mid tibiae fulvous tending pale fuscous basally, hind tibiae pale fuscous; wings with cells bc and c colourless, microtrichia in outer corner of cell c only, a narrow fuscous costal band confluent with or slightly overlapping R 2+3 and remaining narrow around costal margin to end beyond extremity of R 4+5 (in some specimens there is a slight swelling around apex of R 4+5), a narrow fuscous cubital streak ending before wing margin, supernumerary lobe weak; abdominal terga III-V orange-brown with a narrow transverse black band across anterior margin of tergum III and expanding to cover lateral margins where it becomes dark fuscous, a narrow medial longitudinal dark fuscous to black band over all three terga, anterolateral corners of terga IV and V dark fuscous to black.

Attractant. – Methyl eugenol.

Distribution. – India, Thailand. New Record for Bhutan.

Hosts. – Species of wild Solanum including Solanum verbascifolium (Family Solanaceae ) (see Drew & Hancock, 1994; Allwood et al., 1999).

Remarks. – This species is a non pest member of the dorsalis complex with a specialised host plant association. It is similar to B. dorsalis (Hendel) in general colour patterns but differs in having narrow lateral postsutural vittae and a short aculeus on the female ovipositor (see Drew & Hancock, 1994).