Taxonomy
Valid name: Bactrocera (Bactrocera) arecae (Hardy & Adachi, 1954)
Preferred common name: betel nut fruit fly
Synonyms:
Dacus arecae (original combination in Hardy & Adachi, 1954)
Morphology-based identification
Bactrocera arecae can be identified reliably based on morphology. The dark mark on the front femur is a spot character.
Molecular identification
A mitogenome of
B. arecae published by
Yong et al. (2015)Yong et al. (2015):
Yong HS, Song SL, Lim PE, Chan KG, Chow WL, Eamsobhana P, 2015. Complete mitochondrial genome of Bactrocera arecae (Insecta: Tephritidae) by next-generation sequencing and molecular phylogeny of Dacini tribe. Scientific Reports 5: 15155. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep15155 is available on NCBI genbank through accession KR233259. There are no COI reference sequence data available in the
Doorenweerd et al. (2024)Doorenweerd et al. (2024):
Doorenweerd C, San Jose M, Leblanc L, Barr N, Geib SM, Chung AYC, Dupuis JR, Ekayanti A, Fiegalan E, Hemachandra KS, Hossain MA, Huang C, Hsu Y, Morris KY, Maryani A. Mustapeng A, Niogret J, Pham TH, Thi Nguyen N, Sirisena UGAI, Todd T, Rubinoff D, 2024. Towards a better future for DNA barcoding: Evaluating monophyly‐ and distance‐based species identification using COI gene fragments of Dacini fruit flies. Molecular Ecology Resources 24: e13987. https://doi.org/10.1111/1755-0998.13987 dataset.
Distribution
Bactrocera arecae is found in peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, which is its presumed native distribution.
Further information
Bactrocera arecae is reported as a "category D" pest of betel nut (
Areca catechu) in
Vargas et al. (2015)Vargas et al. (2015):
Vargas RI, Pinero JC, Leblanc L, 2015. An overview of pest species of Bactrocera fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) and the integration of biopesticides with other biological approaches for their management with a focus on the pacific region. Insects 6: 297–318. https://doi.org/10.3390/insects6020297. A category D pest is there defined as "species that have been occasionally bred from commercial/edible fruit or cucurbits".
