Psyttalia ponerophaga (Silvestri, 1916)
Remarks
For additional information, see the Psyttalia page.
Taxonomic History / Nomenclature
Originally described as Opius ponerophagus by Silvestri (1916), and later placed by Wharton (1988) in the genus Psyttalia.
Description
Psyttalia ponerophaga is one of the few parasitoids of fruit-infesting tephritids in the genus Psyttalia in which the fore wing m-cu sometimes enters the second submarginal cell (Wharton 2009).
Diagnosis and Relationships
This species was included by Rugman-Jones et al. (2009) in an analysis of relationships among populations of morphologically similar Psyttalia attacking olives and other fruits. Psyttalia ponerophaga proved to be one of the most distinctive of the species examined in this study.
Distribution
Known only from collections in Cherat, northern Pakistan. This was part of India when the species was originally described by Silvestri (1916), and several subsequent references, as indicated in the next section, have erroneously repeated the distribution as India, rather than Pakistan.
Imported to California in the early 2000s for olive fly control, apparently not released.
Distribution
Biology / Hosts
Reared from olive fly, Bactrocera oleae (Rossi), infesting apparently wild olives, and studied in California as part of a biological control program directed against the olive fly (Sime et al. 2007).
