Thistle borer fly
Thistle borer fly | ||||||||||||
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Thistle Borefly ( Urophora cardui ), female |
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Systematics | ||||||||||||
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Scientific name | ||||||||||||
Urophora cardui | ||||||||||||
( Linnaeus , 1758) |
The thistle borer fly ( Urophora cardui ) is a fly from the family of bored flies (Tephritidae).
features
The flies reach a body length of about 5.5 millimeters (males) or about 6.5 millimeters (females). Her body is very distinctive in color. The head is colored yellow in front and black in the back. The scutellum is yellow, the abdomen and thorax are dark. The black colored thighs are broadly colored yellow at the apex, the thighs of the front legs are often also colored yellow in front. The rails and tarsi are completely yellow. The otherwise milky, cloudy wings have several black cross bars. The second and third bandages converge towards the rear and are connected there, the first two and the last two bandages merge at the leading edge of the wing. The first band extends to the rear edge of the wing.
Occurrence and way of life
The animals come from Europe to the Middle East. The adults can be found from May to June in partially shaded places and wet meadows. The larvae form a large, 10 to 50 millimeter long and 5 to 20 millimeter thick, spindle-shaped plant gall on the field thistle ( Cirsium arvense ). This is either on the main shoots or on the side shoots and is initially green and fleshy, later brown and woody. Inside there are several chambers, each with a larva, which begins to develop in July. They hibernate in the gall as pupae and hatch in the next spring.
supporting documents
literature
- Joachim Haupt, Hiroko Haupt: Flies and Mosquitoes. Observation, way of life . 1st edition. Naturbuch-Verlag, Jena and Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-89440-278-4 .
- Heiko Bellmann : Mysterious plant galls . Quelle & Meyer, Wiebelsheim 2012, ISBN 978-3-494-01482-1 .
Web links
- Urophora cardui at Fauna Europaea. Retrieved May 29, 2012