Pneumatic Air Separation for the Sorting of Parasitized and Unparasitized Fruit Fly (Diptera: Tephritidae) Puparia

Abstract

A pneumatic air separator was successfully used to separate unparasitized puparia of Bactmcera dorsalis (Hendel), B. cucurbitae (Coquillett), and Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata (Weidemann), from puparia parasitized by Diachasmirrwrpha longicaudata (Ashmead). Psyttalia fietcheri (Silvestri), and D. tryoni (Cameron), respectively. Separation was done 9-13 d after parasitization with little difference in efficiency of separation among species. Differences in bulk densities (weight to volume) of the unparasitized puparia of the different fly species were all <10% so they could not be separated by this method. Mortality (percentage unemerged) of the flies and parasitoids was not significantly affected by separation procedure. This equipment is adaptable to an automated rearing and handling system for the reduction of labor costs.