Rhagoletis Loew

Norrbom, Allen L., Sutton, Bruce D., Steck, Gary J. & Monzón, José, 2010, New genera, species and host plant records of Nearctic and Neotropical Tephritidae (Diptera) 2398, Zootaxa 2398, pp. 1-65 : 52

Rhagoletis Loew

Rhagoletis Loew 1862 (type species Musca cerasi Linnaeus , by monotypy).

Stoneola Hering 1941 (type species Anastrepha fuscobasalis Hering , by original designation). New synonymy.

The monotypic genus Stoneola Hering is here considered a subjective junior synonym of Rhagoletis Loew , although it remains an available name if the large, somewhat heterogeneous genus Rhagoletis is eventually split.

The lectotype of R. fuscobasalis (Hering) , from Chanchamyo, Peru, is similar to the Rhagoletis ferruginea group, which includes R. adusta Foote from southern Brazil, R. blanchardi Aczél from Argentina and Bolivia, and R. ferruginea Hendel from Argentina, southern Brazil, and Uruguay. The body of R. fuscobasalis is mostly yellow brown, dark brown only on the anepimeron, anatergite, and mediotergite, and the scutum has a 4-striped microtrichial pattern. The wing pattern ( Fig. 93) is banded, similar to the R. ferruginea group ( Fig. 95), except the entire pattern is fainter and more diffuse, with no accessory costal band present, and the subapical band is very broad, the hyaline area between it and the posterior apical band not reaching vein M, and the hyaline area between the anterior and posterior apical bands not reaching vein R 4+5. The absence of the accessory costal band may be due to the fact that the subapical band is extremely broad (fused with accessory costal band?). One difference in R. fuscobasalis is that the apex of the first flagellomere is rounded, but that character varies in some Rhagoletis species. The setae in the ventral row on the apical half of the fore femur in R. fuscobasalis ( Fig. 107) are very stout, but those in the R. ferruginea group ( Fig. 109) and an undescribed species from Argentina ( Fig. 108) are stouter than in other Rhagoletis and are intermediate. This appears to be a synapomorphy for all five species. The undescribed species from Argentina (female specimens from CAS, USNM, IML; some determined by Foote as Stoneola ), also is intermediate in wing pattern ( Fig. 94). It is similar to R. fuscobasalis in color, but the subapical band is not as broad, and the accessory costal band is present, although sometimes connected to the subapical band in cell r 1. It should also be noted that the accessory costal band is absent in some of the other species groups of Rhagoletis . The undescribed species also has spherical spermathecae as in the R. ferruginea group. Rhagoletis fuscobasalis and the undescribed species from Argentina have the scutellum mostly orange, the same color as most of the scutum, slightly paler apically, but without a distinctly whiter area which is a synapomorphy for these two species. They appear to be somewhat derived species of the R. ferruginea group.