Olive fruit fly
The olive fruit fly is a tiny fly that only cares about one thing: olives. It lays its eggs inside olives, and the little maggots eat the olive from the inside. It has a small dark spot at the tip of each wing.
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Fun facts
It is the worst pest of olive trees in the places where it lives.
It was first found in the United States in 1998, in Los Angeles. Now it lives all over California.
The female has bluish-green eyes.
More than 200 years ago, an Italian scientist already wrote tips for farmers on how to get rid of it.
A fully grown maggot is only about 6 to 7 mm long.
Most asked questions about Olive fruit fly
?What does the olive fruit fly eat?
Its maggots eat olives from the inside.
?Is the olive fruit fly dangerous?
Not to people. It does not bite or sting, but it can ruin olive harvests.
?How big is the olive fruit fly?
The grown-up fly is only about 4 to 5 mm long.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Bactrocera oleae
- Group
- Flies and mosquitoes
- Family
- Tephritidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Diptera > Tephritidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Africa, Asia, North America
Where the facts come from
- Olive fruit fly (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Alvesgaspar. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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