Taxonomy
Valid name:
Zeugodacus (
Austrodacus)
cucumis (French, 1907)
Prefered common name: cucumber fruit fly
Synonyms:
Dacus tryoni var.
cucumis (original combination in French, 1907)
Austrodacus cucumis (subsequent combination in Perkins, 1937)
Bactrocera cucumis (subsequent combination in
Drew, 1989Drew, 1989:
Drew RAI, 1989. The tropical fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae: Dacinae) of the Australasian and Oceanian regions. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 1: 1–521.)
Dacus cucumis (subsequent combination in Froggatt 1911)
Morphology-based identification
Zeugodacus cucumis can be identified reliably using morphological characters. It has an overall light appearance with only some small black markings on the abdomen, the scutum has a light orange base color and the abdomen has an almost white central band.
Molecular identification
COI sequence data can be used to identify
Z. cucumis (
Doorenweerd et al. 2024Doorenweerd 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).
Distribution
Zeugodacus cucumis is only known from Australia, which is its presumed native distribution.
Further information
Zeugodacus cucumis is listed as a "category B" pest of Cucurbitaceae fruit in Australia in
Vargas et al. 2015Vargas 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 B pest is there defined as "polyphagous fruit pests or destructive specialists more restricted in distribution, but at elevated risk of spreading to new locations". This Australian species is not attracted to any known male lure. It is one of the main pests of Cucurbitaceae fruit in Australia, and also feeds on tomato and papaw (
Dominiak and Worsley, 2018Dominiak and Worsley, 2018:
Dominiak BC, Worsley P, 2018. Review of cucumber fruit fly, Bactrocera cucumis (French) (Diptera: Tephritidae: Dacinae) in Australia: Part 1, host range, surveillance and distribution. Crop Protection 106: 79–85. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cropro.2017.11.015).
