tephritidae

A True Fruit Fly - Tephritidae Fruit flies are a family, Tephritidae, containing about 5,000 species of often strikingly colored insects.  As the name implies, these flies are frugivores.  Many, such as the mediterranean fruit fly, are agricultural pests. Drosophila melanogaster, the insect that has been so important in genetic research, is not a true fruit fly.  Drosophila is a member of the Drosophilidae, the vinegar or pomace flies.  They are mostly fungivores, and their association with fruit is indirect: they eat the fungus that lives in rotting fruit.  Some pointy-headed…