Veselin Arnaudov, Radoslav Andreev, Hristina Kutinkova, Svilen Raikov PRELIMINARY COMMUNICATION First record of Eurytoma schreineri Schreiner (Hym., Eurytomidae) in Bulgaria Veselin Arnaudov1, Radoslav Andreev2, Hristina Kutinkova1, Svilen Raikov3 1 Fruit growing institute – Plovdiv, 12 Ostromila Str., 4004 Plovdiv, Bulgaria (
[email protected]) 2 Department of Entomology, Agricultural University, Mendeleev 12, 4000 Plovdiv, Bulgaria 3 University of Shumen “Ep. K. Preslavsky”, 30 Universitetsca Str., 9700 Shumen, Bulgaria ABSTRACT The plum seed wasp, Eurytoma schreineri Schr. (Schreiner, 1908) is non-native species insect for Bulgarian fauna. This species was first recordеd in Bulgaria in 2013, in the regions Dobrich and Silistra, in the northeastern part of the country. E. schreineri is oligophagous. The larva feeds in the endosperm of stone fruits, mainly in plum and apricot and rarely sweet and sour cherry. Attacked fruits visibly did not differ from healthy. Infested fruits caused massive fruit falls and drying. Some preliminary observations on its phenology, main morphological characters and differences from other related species are mentioned. Keywords: Prunus domestica, plum seed wasp, Eurytoma schreineri, adult emergence, Northeast Bulgaria Introduction Species of the genus Eurytoma (Hymenoptera: Eurytomidae) display a wide range of host and biology, with eight Palearctic species associated with stone fruit. Unlike most chalcidoids which are parasitoids, the larvae of some species of the family Eurytomidae are phytophagous. The following five species are of economic importance for stone fruits: Eurytoma amygdali Enderlein for almond and wild almond; Eurytoma schreineri Schreiner for apricot, cherry, plum and blackthorn, Eurytoma maslovskii Nikolskaja for peach, Eurytoma padi Vereshchagin for bird cherry and Eurytoma samsonowi Vassiliev for almond, apricot, plum and peach.