Drosophila lutzii

Schmitz, Hermes José & Valente, Vera Lúcia da Silva, 2019, The flower flies and the unknown diversity of Drosophilidae (Diptera): a biodiversity inventory in the Brazilian fauna, Papéis Avulsos de Zoologia (Pap. Avulsos Zool., S. Paulo) 59, pp. 1-15 : 8

Drosophila lutzii species group (= subgenus Phloridosa of Drosophila )

This taxon comprises only Neotropical flower‑breeding species, traditionally classified as the subgenus Phloridosa ( Sturtevant, 1942) , but recently transferred to the subgenus Drosophila as D.lutzii species group ( Yassin, 2013). Two species were represented in our samples, D. denieri and D. lutzii . Their time of emergence of imagoes was around 10‑13 days after the flowers were collected. Drosophila lutzii are widespread in the Southern United States, Mexico, Central America ( Sturtevant, 1921; Chassagnard & Tsacas, 1992), and introduced to Hawaii ( Montague & Kaneshiro, 1982), but only sparsely record‑ ed in South America ( Pilares & Suyo, 1982, in Peru; Vilela, 1984, in Argentina; Acurio & Rafael, 2009, in Ecuador), although probably widespread. It was recorded in Brazil for the first time by Schmitz & Hofmann (2005), in the southern states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina, followed by Roque & Tidon (2008) in the states of Mato Grosso and Goiás, in central Brazil, and Santa‑Brígida et al. (2017) in the northern state of Pará. In the present survey, it is recorded for the first time in the states of São Paulo and Paraná. In turn, D. denieri is known only to South America, being referred for northern Argentina ( Blanchard, 1938), Uruguay (Goñi et al., 1998) and for the Brazilian states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina ( Schmitz & Hofmann, 2005), Rio de Janeiro ( Frota‑Pessoa, 1952) and Mato Grosso ( Blauth & Gottschalk, 2007). Both species are polyphagous. In the present survey, while D. denieri occurred in a wider variety of botanical families, including exotic elements, most specimens of D. lutzii occurred in Ipomoea . However, this species is also recorded for different botanical families ( Chassagnard & Tsacas, 1992; Roque & Tidon, 2008). The two species co‑occurred in Brugmansia suaveolens , but generally, D. denieri was the most common species in this plant. On the other hand, D. lutzii was the most common species found in all species of Ipomoea , except I. alba . However, there are exceptions, such as Pelotas, where only D. denieri was found in I. cairica and I. indica . These two species, wherever found, almost always shared their host plants with species of the Drosophila bromeliae species group. Both species could be reared just very poorly in the banana‑agar medium in the laboratory, with just a few individuals for one generation or two, as previously reported for the group ( Brncic, 1962b).