[Edited_by_A._Ciancio,_C.N.R.,_Bari,_Italy_and_K.(Bookos.org)

90
L. ZAPPALÀ
yellowish-white, slender, elongate, tapering anteriorly. The pupa is reddish-brown,
4.5 mm long. Some strains have pupae of different colour in the two sexes.
The Mediterranean fruit fly is known to attack more than 260 different fruits,
flowers, vegetables and nuts. Thin-skinned, ripe succulent fruits are preferred (apple,
apricot, coffee, fig, Indian fig, loquat, peach, pear, persimmon, strawberries, etc.).
Although it may be a major pest of citrus (Fig. 9), often it is a more serious pest of
some deciduous fruits, such as peach, pear, and apple.
Using the oviscapt the female lays eggs in clusters of 1–15 (in relation to the size
of the fruit), about 2–5 mm deep under the skin of fruits. Oviposition may take from
2 to 20 min. Although each female after oviposition normally labels the fruit with
deterrent substances, several females may lay eggs in the same fruit and up to 80
eggs may be found. This might be related to the decreased deterring efficacy on
large fruits. One single female may lay as many as 22 eggs/day and as many as 800
during her lifetime (usually about 300). The females are attracted by visual and
olfactory cues and normally choose the same kind of fruit during each oviposition
cycle. Females usually die soon after they stop laying eggs. When the eggs hatch,
the larvae promptly begin feeding on the pulp of fruits and about 15 days at a mean
temperature of 25°C are necessary to complete their development.
Figure 9. Ceratitis capitata adult female on a citrus fruit.
Larvae pass through 3 instars. In cooler regions the species usually overwinters
as pupa (while in warm climates it develops without interruptions), buried a few
centimetres deep in the soil. In southern areas, a small number of individuals may
also survive on late-season oranges. The pupa does not survive if temperatures are
lower than 2°C for a week.
Development of this fruit fly is mainly dependant on temperature. The optimum is
around 32°C, which allows a generation to be completed in 2 weeks. Females will not
oviposit when temperatures drop below 16°C, except when exposed to sunlight for