Rediscovery of Rhagoletis ebbettsi Bush, 1966 (Diptera, Tephritidae) in California, U.S.A.

Rhagoletis ebbettsi Bush, 1966 is known only from a single damaged female holotype from Ebbetts Pass, California, U.S.A. This holotype has a unique wing pattern, with medially connected discal and subapical bands, used by Bush as a defining character in the species diagnosis. No additional specimens of R. ebbettsi have never been reported since its description. In a search for R. ebbettsi, we targeted the type locality using sticky traps and sweep netting from Juniperus grandis R. P. Adams (Cupressaceae), a common plant in higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada mountains, including Ebbetts Pass, that serves as a host to Rhagoletis flies. All previous records from Californian junipers were identified as R. juniperina Marcovitch, 1915. The type locality of R. juniperina is Ithaca, New York, and its host plant is J. virginiana Linnaeus. We collected over 60 specimens of Rhagoletis similar to R. juniperina in this survey, and one specimen had a similar wing pattern to R. ebbettsi, with connected discal and subapical wing bands. Detailed morphological examination of the aberrant specimen showed no other differences from the remaining flies, except the wing pattern. Given the morphological, molecular, and host plant differences between Rhagoletis specimens infesting J. grandis in California and Rhagoletis infesting other juniper species elsewhere, we propose to retain the name R. ebbettsi to refer to specimens of Rhagoletis collected from J. grandis. Further, we consider the connected wing bands to be a rare wing pattern variant present in the R. juniperina species complex, which includes R. ebbettsi.