Drosophila ananassae Doleschall, 1859:128

Mcevey, Shane F. & Polak, Michal, 2021, Drosophilidae (Diptera) of the Cook Islands, Records of the Australian Museum (Rec. Aust. Mus.) 73 (5), pp. 153-170 : 161

Drosophila ananassae Doleschall, 1859:128

Drosophila ananassae is the most abundant and most frequently collected species in the South Pacific, including on all the Cook Islands surveyed in this study ( Table 3) and others (e.g., Pukapuka, no abundance data). It can be collected at fruit baits in the thousands. It is also easily cultured in laboratories and samples from different populations have, since the 1960s, been the subject of numerous genetic, cytological and behavioural studies; see historical overview in McEvey & Schiffer (2015). Many of the male specimens of the ananassae species complex collected during the present survey from the Cook Islands, were dissected, and found to have terminalia corresponding either to Drosophila ananassae (sensu McEvey & Schiffer, 2015) or to a different, hitherto unknown species, described below.