New and confirmed records of fruit flies (Diptera, Tephritidae) from Italy

Abstract Background Prior to this study, 141 species of Tephritidae were known to occur in Italy. New information Italian records of nine species of the family Tephritidae (Diptera) are provided. Five species, Eurasimonastigma (Loew, 1840), Noeetabisetosa Merz, 1992, Campiglossadoronici (Loew, 1856), Xyphosialaticauda (Meigen, 1826) and Rhagoletisberberidis Jermy, 1961 are recorded from Italy for the first time, whereas four species, Inuromaesamaura (Frauenfeld, 1857), Urophoracuspidata (Meigen, 1826), Tephritisconyzifoliae Merz, 1992 and T.mutabilis Merz, 1992, previously recorded in the Fauna Europaea database without reference to collection material, are confirmed and supplemented with host plant data and other collection data.


Introduction
Tephritidae is one of the largest families of cyclorrhaphous Diptera, with almost 5,000 named species predominantly found in the tropics (A. Norrbom, pers. comm.). The family is also referred to as "fruit flies", as it contains many species that are specialised feeders on fleshy fruit. The tropical regions are true hotspots of tephritid diversity, including hundreds of fruit-eating species, but also species with saprophagous larvae feeding under the bark of fallen trees or in bamboo culms (Korneyev 1999, Dohm et al. 2014). On the other hand, most Palaearctic species are flower and seed feeders, with larvae that are borers in the flower heads, stems and rhizomes of Asteraceae, Lamiaceae and Acanthaceae. The European fauna is represented by at least 265 species belonging to three subfamilies: Dacinae, Tephritinae and Trypetinae (Merz and Korneyev 2011, V. Korneyev, unpublished data). Some of the fruit-eating species are widespread economic pests which cause serious damage to fruit crops and stored fruit. The olive fly, Bactrocera oleae (Rossi, 1794) and the medfly, Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann, 1817), as well as many members of the genera Rhagoletis Loew, 1862 andCarpomya Costa, 1854, are well-known examples. Starting from Rondani (Rondani 1856, Rondani 1870), who listed 109 nominal species known from Italy and following numerous nomenclatural changes, the number of Italian fruit fly species reached 133 species according to Belcari et al. (1995). Later, Merz and Korneyev (2011) increased this number to 141 species, but did not provide occurrence data for species added to the Italian list. These were: Inuromaesa maura (Frauenfeld, 1857), Urophora congrua Loew, 1862, U. cuspidata (Meigen, 1826, Tephritis conyzifoliae Merz, 1992, T. maccus Hering, 1937, T. mutabilis Merz, 1992, Chaetorellia acrolophi White & Marquardt, 1989 rhapontici Merz, 1990, Rhagoletis batava Hering, 1958 andR. cingulata (Loew, 1862), all based on collection material identified by Bernhard Merz, but not formally published.
Other relatively recent contributions to the Italian tephritid fauna, including first Italian records, were made by Merz (2002) for Campiglossa misella (Loew, 1869) and Rivosecchi (2008) for Euphranta toxoneura (Loew, 1846). Gentilini et al. (2006) described two fossil species from the Upper Miocene (Messinian) of Monte Castellaro. Seljak (2013) recorded Euaresta aequalis (Loew), a non-native, North American species considered beneficial as a biological control agent of the invasive plant Xanthium strumarium L. (Asteraceae), from Italy and Slovenia for the first time. Recently, Nugnes et al. (2018) provided the first Italian records of the invasive fruit pest species Bactrocera dorsalis (Hendel, 1912) from the Region of Campania.
In this paper, we record five tephritid species for Italy for the first time and confirm the occurrence in the country of four additional species, based on detailed collection data and host plant information obtained during research on symbiotic bacteria of over 30 fruit fly species. The analysis revealed the presence of hereditary symbiotic bacteria in Bactrocera oleae (Rossi, 1790) (Capuzzo et al. 2005) and in all studied species of the tribe Tephritini and the genus Noeeta Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830. In other tribes (e.g., Myopitini, Xyphosiini and Terelliini), despite the common trait of larvae developing in Asteraceae flower heads, evolution does not seem to have occurred for the establishment of a hereditary bacterial interaction (Mazzon et al. 2008, Mazzon et al. 2010, Mazzon et al. 2011).

Materials and methods
The flies were collected in Italy by the first author, reared from mature larvae and pupae collected together with infested flower heads. Flower heads were detached from their stems and placed in net bags at room temperature to allow the insects to complete their development. An in-field pre-screening of positive samples involved sectioning of the inflorescences and inspection for the presence of larvae or pupae. Adults of Eurasimona stigma (Loew, 1840) were collected with a mouth aspirator while resting on their host plant.
The species were identified using the keys of  and Merz (1994). The nomenclature follows Norrbom et al. (1999). Host plants were determined using the Italian botanical keys in Pignatti (1982); when necessary, identifications were confirmed by a specialist.
All voucher specimens (Figs 1, 2) are deposited in the fruit fly collection of the Laboratory of Entomology of the Department of Agronomy, Food, Natural Resources, Animals and Environment, University of Padua, Italy (UPI).

Biology
The larvae

Distribution
Northern, central and eastern Europe from northern Spain, southern France and Italy (Merz 1994, Merz andKorneyev 2011) to Ukraine, European and Asian Russia and Kazakhstan (Korneyev and White 1996); Iran (Mohamadzade Namin and Nozari 2011). Notes: the present records from Italy (Fig. 1c) confirm the country-level record by Merz and Korneyev (2011). The record from Turkey by Kütük et al. (2013) needs confirmation.

Biology
The larvae feed in flower heads of Hieracium piloselloides Vill. (Merz 1992).

Distribution
Austria, Czechia, France, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine (Merz and Korneyev 2011). The species (Fig. 2b) is here recorded as new to Italy.

Biology
The larvae feed in flower heads of Leontodon hispidus L. (Merz 1992, Merz 1994

Biology
The larvae develop in flower heads of Centaurea montana L. (Frauenfeld 1857); this species is superficially similar to Centaurea triumfettii All.; either both species are infested by this species or misidentifications have occurred.

Discussion
Based on the present results and on a recent revision of the fauna, the revised checklist of Italian Tephritidae (Mazzon and Korneyev, in press) includes 151 extant and two fossil species.