Variable Fruit Fly
S2, Female, Ovipositor, ventral
Ellura
False Fruit Fly
Female, dorsal, ~4mm
 
                      
Variable Fruit Fly (Acanthonevroides variegatus)Class: Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta)
Order: Flies (Diptera)
Family: Fruit Fly (Tephritidae)     iNaturalist Observation
Species: Variable Fruit Fly (Acanthonevroides variegatus)
This Photo:     🔍S2, Female, ventral🔎

Thank you Tony Daley for identifying this species for us

General Species Information:
Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA) and elsewhere
1st Live Photo on-line:
~7mm long. Females have a flat, spade like ovipositor to lay their eggs. Interestingly these have 3 longitudinal black marks on the top of the head. The related ones, A. basalis, don't; they just seem to have a darker rectangular region from the ocelli to the frons.
Tony said "It is either A. variegatus or most closely allied by the shape of the scutellum - sides concave - and only having four marginal bristles on the scutellum - all other species with scutellum rounded and with six marginal brisltes. The hyaline area in the wing discal cell is isolated there, not extending to wing margin as in all the other species. The head markings are not in the original description, and it seems it might be another variation as the species name implies."

Copyright © 2023-2024 Brett & Marie Smith. All Rights Reserved. Photographed 17-Jan-2023
This species is an Australian Native Species, not listed in the SA Murray Mallee Survey of 2010.