Procontarinia matteiana - Galls

The Mango leaf-gall midge (Procontarinia matteiana) is one of about 15-20 midges in the genus Procontarinia whose larvae feed on Mango and form galls. Most form leaf galls but P. frugivora is a fruit-gall midge and P. mangiferae forms blossom galls. Supposedly the taxonomy is a bit iffy, with some authors mixing characters and species names in various ways and some more revision is needed to achieve reliable distribution data (and probably splitting off some more species), but for now the only leaf-gall forming species known from Java is Procontarinia matteiana - according to the 3rd ed. of the Catalog of the Cecidomyiidae (Diptera) of the World (Gagné, 2014):
https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/80420580/Gagne_2014_World_Cecidomyiidae_Catalog_3rd_Edition.pdf

comments (3)

Ferdy Christant

Lion

Now that's a deep specialization, wonderful how you leave to no leaf unturned :) Posted 8 years ago
1. Pudding4brains
  
  Lion
  
  Thanks Ferdy, I had bought a few books on growing fruits and vegetables and on pests etc while I was in Indonesia (as they didn't have any books on insects as such, that was the best replacement I could come by) and one of the books had an image similar to mine with a misspelled species name, but it put me on the right track nevertheless. Hard to know where to start looking otherwise ;o) Posted 8 years ago
2. 1. Ferdy Christant
    
    Lion
    
    That's quite a story, thanks for going into such great lengths for species identification. Posted 8 years ago

The Procontarinia matteiana

'Procontarinia matteiana' is a species of Midge in the genus ''Procontarinia'' of the family Cecidomyiidae that can be found in India, Kenya, Mauritius, and Réunion.

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Similar species: True Flies

Species identified by Pudding4brains