''Coenosia attenuata'' (also sometimes cited as ''Coenosia attenuate''), commonly called "hunter fly" or well known under the name "killer fly", is a predatory fly belonging to the family

Muscidae Muscidae are a family of flies found in the superfamily Muscoidea. Muscidae, some of which are commonly known as house flies or stable flies due to their synanthropy, are worldwide in distribution and contain almost 4,000 described species i ...

Distribution

This species is native to

Southern Europe Southern Europe is also known as Mediterranean Europe, as its geography is marked by the Mediterranean Sea. Definitions of southern Europe include some or all of these countries and regions: Albania, Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, C ...

, where it is present in

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

and

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

. It has now a worldwide distribution and it can also be found in the

Afrotropical realm The Afrotropical realm is one of the Earth's eight biogeographic realms. It includes Sub-Saharan Africa, the southern Arabian Peninsula, the island of Madagascar, and the islands of the western Indian Ocean. It was formerly known as the Ethiopi ...

, in the

Australasian realm The Australasian realm is one of eight biogeographic realms that is coincident with, but not (by some definitions) the same as, the geographical region of Australasia. The realm includes Australia, the island of New Guinea (comprising Papua Ne ...

, in the East

Palearctic realm The Palearctic or Palaearctic is a biogeographic realm of the Earth, the largest of eight. Confined almost entirely to the Eastern Hemisphere, it stretches across Europe and Asia, north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa. The ...

, in the

Near East The Near East () is a transcontinental region around the Eastern Mediterranean encompassing the historical Fertile Crescent, the Levant, Anatolia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and coastal areas of the Arabian Peninsula. The term was invented in the 20th ...

, in the

Nearctic realm The Nearctic realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting the Earth's land surface. The Nearctic realm covers most of North America, including Greenland, Central Florida, and the highlands of Mexico. The parts of North America t ...

, in the

Neotropical realm The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropics, tropical Ecoregion#Terrestrial, terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperat ...

, in

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

and in the

Oriental realm The Indomalayan realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms. It extends across most of South and Southeast Asia and into the southern parts of East Asia. Also called the Oriental realm by biogeographers, Indomalaya spreads all over the Ind ...

. It was first discovered in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

in 2001 by an

Integrated Pest Management Integrated pest management (IPM), also known as integrated pest control (IPC) integrates both chemical and non-chemical practices for economic control of pests. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization defines IPM as "the careful consideratio ...

scout in a greenhouse in

New York State New York, also called New York State, is a state in the northeastern United States. Bordered by New England to the east, Canada to the north, and Pennsylvania and New Jersey to the south, its territory extends into both the Atlantic Ocean and ...

. It has since been found throughout North and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

Description

Adults of ''Coenosia attenuata'' can reach a length of . These tiny killer flies have a pale brownish or greyish body, with big reddish eyes. Antennae and legs are yellow in males. Females have brownish frons, with a golden ocellar triangle. Antennae and femora are black and the abdomen shows distinct black bands, that are missing in the males.Yohan Solano-Rojas, Adrian Pont, José De Freitas, Gustavo Moro & Yaritza Goy
First record of Coenosia attenuata Stein, 1903 (Diptera: Muscidae) in Venezuela
Anales de Biología 39: 223-226, 2017

Biology

''Coenosia attenuata'' is a very effective generalist predator of insects, usually small bugs (''

Bemisia tabaci The silverleaf whitefly (''Bemisia tabaci'', also informally referred to as the sweet potato whitefly) is one of several species of whitefly that are currently important agricultural pests. A review in 2011 concluded that the silverleaf whitefly ...

'', ''

Trialeurodes vaporariorum ''Trialeurodes vaporariorum'', commonly known as the glasshouse whitefly or greenhouse whitefly, is an insect that inhabits the world's temperate regions. Like various other whitefly, whiteflies, it is a primary insect pest (animal), pest of many ...

'', ''

Bactericera cockerelli ''Bactericera cockerelli'', also known as the potato psyllid, is a species of Psylloidea, psyllid native to southern North America. Its range extends from Central America north to the American Pacific Northwest and parts of Manitoba, in Canada ...

'') and flies (''

Bradysia ''Bradysia'' is a genus of fungus gnat in the family Sciaridae.a They are commonly known as darkwinged fungus gnats. They are considered a major pest in greenhouse agriculture because they thrive in the moist conditions common inside greenhouses ...

'' species, '' Liriomyza'' species, ''

Drosophila ''Drosophila'' (), from Ancient Greek δρόσος (''drósos''), meaning "dew", and φίλος (''phílos''), meaning "loving", is a genus of fly, belonging to the family Drosophilidae, whose members are often called "small fruit flies" or p ...

'' species), but also small Hymenoptera (''

Encarsia formosa ''Encarsia formosa'' is a species of chalcidoid wasp and a well known parasitoid of greenhouse whitefly, one of the first to be used commercially for biological pest control, from the 1920s. Its use fell with commercial pesticides in the 1940s, ...

''). Potential prey are caught only in mid-air with its front legs. The preferred prey in greenhouses are dark-winged fungus gnats (

Sciaridae The Sciaridae are a family of fly, flies, commonly known as dark-winged fungus gnats. Commonly found in moist environments, they are known to be a pest of mushroom farms and are commonly found in household plant pots. This is one of the least s ...

). This species is considered an important biological control agent against some plant pests, including fruit flies and other common greenhouse pests. It has also shown promise as a

biological control Biological control or biocontrol is a method of controlling pests, whether pest animals such as insects and mites, weeds, or pathogens affecting animals or plants by using other organisms. It relies on predation, parasitism, herbivory, or o ...

agent of

fungus gnat Fungus gnats are small, dark, short-lived gnats, of the families Sciaridae, Diadocidiidae, Ditomyiidae, Keroplatidae, Bolitophilidae, and Mycetophilidae (order Diptera); they comprise six of the seven families placed in the superfamily Sc ...

s and shore flies.Hoebeke, E.R., Sensenbach, E.J., Sanderson, J.P., Wraight, S.P. First Report of ''Coenosia attenuata'' Stein (Diptera: Muscidae), an Old World 'Hunter Fly,' in North America. ''Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington''. 2003. v. 105. p. 769-775.

References

Muscidae Insects used as insect pest control agents Diptera of North America Diptera of South America Insects described in 1903 Diptera of Europe Articles containing video clips {{Muscidae-stub