Issue No. 132
H. V. Weems, Jr, and G. W. Dekle
May, 1973
Introduction
A blotch leafminer, Amauromyza maculosa (Malloch), is a pest of dooryard plantings of chrysanthemum throughout most of florida. It is not an important pest of commercial chrysanthemums in the principal commercial planting areas of Bradenton-Ft. Myers and Stuart-Delray Beach. This species, which, according to Spencer and Stegmaier (1973), probably evolved in South America and has extended its range into North America since the end of the pleistocene period, may be distinguished readily from related species by the variegated color of the halteres of the adult flies. The large blotch mines, produced on foliage by the feeding of the larvae, are similar to those produced by larvae of another agromyzid fly, Nemorimyza posticata (Meigen), which also occurs in Florida, usually on Solidago and Aster.