Mediterranean fruit fly

Mediterranean fruit fly, (Ceratitis capitata), species of fruit fly native to Europe and Africa that is a particularly destructive and costly insect pest. The Mediterranean fruit fly lays as many as 500 eggs in citrus fruits (except lemons and sour limes). The larvae tunnel into the flesh of the fruit and make it unfit for human consumption. Discovered in Florida in 1929, the Mediterranean fruit fly was thought to have been eradicated in the United States by 1930 but reappeared in 1956 and in the early 1960s and again, in California, in the 1980s. It has also become established in Hawaii. Because of this pest, worldwide quarantine laws were formed to regulate the entry of fruits into countries.