Larvae of Fruit Flies, 7. Anastrepha obliqua (West Indian fruit fly)

The West Indian fruit fly, Anastrepha obliqua (Macquart), occurs in southern Florida and throughout the Caribbean, south to southern Brazil. The species has been widely known by its synonym, A. mombinpraeoptans Sein, or as a variety of the continental Neotropical species, Anastrepha fraterculus (Wiedemann) (Berg, 1979; Weems, 1970), and is one of several closely related species of Anastrepha (Weems, 1980). Numbers of host plants have been noted for the West Indian fruit fly but due to confusion between A. obliqua and A. fraterculus, and others in this species complex, it is unclear what the true host range is for each species. Weems (1980) noted numerous tropical fruit hosts for the “fraterculus complex.” A long list of recorded hosts for the West Indian fruit fly was also noted by Norrbom and Kim (1988), with mango (Mangifera indica L.), guava (Psidium guajava L.), and hog plums (Spondias sp.) being most often mentioned.