Country Checklist of Rhagoletis Loew (Diptera: Tephritidae) for Europe, with Focus on R. Batava and Its Recent Range Expansion

Abstract

This work is intended as a country checklist of fruit flies Rhagoletis Loew, 1862 for Europe (including transcontinental countries-Kazakhstan and Turkey), based on recent records, wherein we recognise 15 Rhagoletis species, including five species occurring in the Asian part of Kazakhstan. During the past 10-15 years, three species, Rhagoletis batava Hering, 1958, R. cingulata (Loew, 1862), and R. completa Cresson, 1929, have rapidly expanded their distribution range in Europe. We traced the potential route of an aggressive R. batava population movement into Europe, and it is postulated that this R. batava race originated from Siberia. R. batava was initially documented outside its natural range in 2001 in the European part of the Russian Federation. Later, this species was recorded in other territories to the west of Russia-Belarus (2010), Latvia (2011), Lithuania (2012), Germany (2013), and Poland (2014). In Germany and Poland, R. batava probably has both native and alien status.