Parasitoids of Fruit-Infesting Tephritidae

The genus was described by Delucchi (1956) for some of the species formerly included in Dinarmus.
See the Pteromalidae page for additional information.

Cyrtoptyx latipes (Rondani, 1874) is the current valid name for Dinarmus dacicida Masi and dacicida has sometimes been treated as a subspecies, in which case the name would be Cyrtoptyx latipes dacicida (Masi, 1907). For additional information, see the Chalcidoidea Database by John Noyes.

Cyrtoptyx latipes, in the strict sense, occurs from Cyprus through the Middle East to India plus Eritrea, with purposeful introduction to Italy. Inclusion of the subspecies noted above makes this species more widely distributed on both sides of the Mediterranean.

Reared from Olive fly, Bactrocera oleae.

Silvestri observed Cyrtoptyx latipes (which he called Dinarmus dacicida and Dinarmus dacicida virescens ) attacking the larval stage of olive fly (Bactrocera oleae ) infesting olives in Italy (Silvestri 1914, pp. 83-85). In field experiments in Crete, Greece, Bigler et al. found parasitization rates by Cyrtoptyx latipes of olive fly to decrease with increasing host density in both olive orchards and oleaster areas (Bigler et al. 1986). An earlier study by Neuenschwander et al. (1983) provides additional details for Western Crete. A detailed biology is also provided by Luigifilippo (1967).