A Bibliography of North American Cherry Fruit Flies (Diptera: Tephritidae)

Abstract

Cherry fruit flies (cherry maggots) are by far the most destructive pests of cultivated cherries in the world. The damage caused by these insects is very serious, and because of almost zero population tolerance, enormous amounts of pesticides are used to obtain acceptable fruit. Four species of fruit flies are known to cause significant damage to cultivated cherries. These are the European cherry fruit fly, Rhagoletis cerasi L., the black cherry fruit fly, Rhagoletis fausta (Osten Sacken), the cherry fruit fly, Rhagoletis cingulata (Loew), and the western cherry fruit fly, Rhagoletis indifferens Curran. Of these, the latter three are native North American species (Bush 1966, AliNiazee 1973). The western cherry fruit fly is distributed in west coast areas from California to British Columbia and in parts of Idaho, Montana, Utah, and Colorado. The cherry fruit fly R. cingulata is distributed in the eastern half of North America, east of Iowa. The black cherry fruit fly, R. fausta occurs in both eastern and western North America, but it is significantly less important on cultivated cherries than the other two species. The European cherry fruit fly is native to Europe. It was introduced to this country many times, but never became established in North America.