Pictorial keys for predominant Bactrocera and Dacus fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) of north western Himalaya

A pictorial key for 13 species of fruit flies under 2 genera namely Bactrocera and Dacus of subfamily Dacinae (Diptera: Tephritidae) is presented in this paper based on actual photographs of fruit flies collected from north western Himalaya of India during 2009-2010. Among these, Bactrocera diversa (Coquillett), Bactrocera scutellaris (Bezzi), Bactrocera tau (Walker), Bactrocera cucurbitae (Coquillett), Bactrocera zonata (Saunders), Bactrocera correcta (Bezzi), Bactrocera dorsalis (Hendel), Bactrocera latifrons (Hendel) and Dacus ciliatus Loew are the pests of agricultural and horticultural ecosystems. Bactrocera latifrons, Bactrocera nigrofemoralis White and Tsuruta, Dacus longicornis Wiedemann and Dacus sphaeroidalis (Bezzi) are the new records from the region of which host range has yet to be investigated. The pictorial keysdeveloped for these species will help the researchers for their easy and accurate identification.