62 



BULLETIN 536, IT. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



THE ADULT. 



DESCRIPTION. 



A general idea of the relative size and coloration of the adult of the 

 Mediterranean fruit fly may be gained by an examination of text 

 figures 1 and 14, and Plate I figure 1, and Plate VIII figure 3. The 

 adults vary from 3.5 to 5 mm. in length. The description by 

 Froggatt is as follows : 



Size 4 to 5 mm. about the size of an average house-fly, but looking somewhat smaller 

 when dead, because the body shrinks up beneath the thorax. General color, ocherous 

 yellow, lighter on the sides of thorax and basal joints of the antennae. The eyes of 

 the usual reddish purple tint, with a blackish blotch in the center of the forehead, 

 from which spring two stout black bristles, a fine fringe of similar bristles round the 



Fig. 14.— The Mediterranean fruit fly ( Ceratitis capitata): Adult male. Greatly enlarged. (Original.) 



hind margin of the head, with some coarser ones curving round in front of' the head 

 between the eyes. The thickened basal joints of the antennae pale yellow, the termi- 

 nal segments black to the tips. The dorsal surface of the thorax convex, raised, and 

 broadly rounded with the scutellum, the ground color creamy white to yellow, marbled 

 with shiny black blotches forming an irregular mosaic pattern, the lighter portions 

 clothed with very fine white bristles. These light-colored bristles more lightly 

 scattered over the dark areas, and the whole bearing large stout black bristles thickest 

 on the black surface. In many of the pictures of this insect the black areas are drawn 

 as if they were projecting bosses or knobs, but this is incorrect; the whole forms a 

 regular rounded surface. 



The wings are broad, semiopaque, with the extreme base blotched with ocherous 

 or brownish yellow, with the rest of the basal area curiously marked with black, form- 

 ing dark lines of the radiating nervures, with dark lines and spots between; beyond 

 this is a broad irregular transverse ocherous band, slightly lined with black, blotched 

 at the extremity; another similar shaped and colored blotch runs along inside but 



