First Documented Wild Population of the "Hunter Fly", Coenosia attenuata Stein (Diptera: Muscidae) in North America

Amos D Kaldor; Joseph V McHugh; Jason M Schmidt; Xuelin Luo; Tara D Gariepy; Brett R Blaauw

doi:10.3390/insects13110970

First Documented Wild Population of the "Hunter Fly", Coenosia attenuata Stein (Diptera: Muscidae) in North America

Insects. 2022 Oct 22;13(11):970. doi: 10.3390/insects13110970.

Authors

Amos D Kaldor^{1

2}, Joseph V McHugh^{1

3}, Jason M Schmidt², Xuelin Luo⁴, Tara D Gariepy⁵, Brett R Blaauw¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Entomology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30606, USA.
² Department of Entomology, University of Georgia, Tifton, GA 31793, USA.
³ Georgia Museum of Natural History, Athens, GA 30606, USA.
⁴ Experimental Statistics, University of Georgia, Tifton, GA 31793, USA.
⁵ London Research and Development Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, London, ON N5V 4T3, Canada.

Abstract

Coenosia attenuata is a member of the tigrina-group of Coenosia (sensu Hennig 1964) and is a capable generalist predator in its larval and adult stages. C. attenuata is common in greenhouses worldwide, however, there are few documented cases of its presence in the wild. Here, we estimated C. attenuata presence in the southeastern USA peach orchards using pan traps. Over two years, a total of 717 specimens were collected from both commercially managed and fungicide-only managed peach orchards. C. attenuata is a known biological control agent in artificial greenhouse settings, but its impact on pest species in the wild is still unknown. For the first time in North America, we document an established wild population of C. attenuata, provide an overview of basic identification, and review potential benefits for biological control.

Keywords: DNA barcoding; Southeast; biological control; peach orchard; phenology; tiger fly.

Abstract

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