Urophora cardui
Distelbohrfliege ( Urophora cardui ), female
The Distelbohrfliege ( Urophora cardui ) is a fly from the family of fruit flies ( Tephritidae ).
Features
The flies reach a body length of about 5.5 mm ( males ) or about 6.5 millimeters (females ). Your body is colored very distinctive. The head is yellow front, rear black colored. The tag ( scutellum ) is yellow, the abdomen and the thorax shining dark. The black-colored legs are colored yellow wide at the apex, the legs of the front legs are often colored yellow front also. The rails and tarsi entirely yellow. The otherwise dull milky wings have several black cross bands. The second and third binding run converging back and are connected there, the first two and the last two binding merge the wing leading edge. The first binding extends to the wing trailing edge.
Occurrence and life
The animals come from Europe prior to the Near East. The adults are from May to June onwards partially shaded places and wet meadows. The larvae form a large, 10 to 50 millimeters long and 5 to 20 millimeters thick, spindle-shaped plants bile on the creeping thistle ( Cirsium arvense). This is either due to the main shoots or side branches, and is initially green and fleshy, later brown and woody. Inside there are several chambers, each with a larva, whose development from July lasts until the next spring.