Field Identification
A colorful tephritid notorious for stinging thin-skinned fruit—stone fruit, citrus, berries, tomatoes—leaving soft rots and regulatory headaches. The spotted thorax and patterned wings separate it from vinegar flies on the wing.
Yellow, black, and white body with mottled wings and dark wing bands; larvae are short maggots in fruit pulp. Multiple generations per year in Mediterranean and subtropical climates.
How to Deal With It
Organic Control Methods
Bait sprays combining protein lure with spinosad or other approved botanical/microbial actives—applied to spots or alternate rows to kill searching females and males.
Parasitoids such as Psyttalia concolor and Diachasmimorpha spp. used in augmentative and classical programs; preserve native parasitoids with bait-focused tactics.
Sanitation picking of fallen fruit; host removal in abandoned orchards; coordinated neighborhood cleanup—Medfly does not respect fence lines.
Fruit bagging; trapping for monitoring (Jackson traps, etc.); heat or cold treatment of fruit for trade where certified.
Early trapping; legal restrictions on moving homegrown fruit from quarantine zones; education on hitchhiking larvae.
Let Nature Handle It
Natural Enemies
- Psyttalia concolor
- Diachasmimorpha tryoni
- Diachasmimorpha longicaudata