The Mediterranean fruit fly, also known as the "medfly" is considered to be the world's most destructive pests. It has a strong appetite for many different fruits. Some preferred fruits include: apples, apricots, citrus, cherry, mango, pears, peach, plum, rose apple, and guava. The adult fruit fly is smaller than the house fly and measures approximately 3.5-5.0 mm. It is yellowish with a brown tinge, especially on the abdomen and legs, with some color on the wings.
             Female medflies attack ripe or ripening fruit by piercing the soft skin and laying 3 to 14 eggs in the puncture. After about two days, the eggs hatch into larvae , which feed inside the fruit pulp and quickly turn the fruit into a rotten mass. Generally, the fruit spoils and drops to the ground. Adult female flies may live up to 40 days and can lay approximately 300 eggs (EPA).
             The Mediterranean fruit fly has an extensive list of cultivated and wild host plants. Thin skinned, ripe, succulent fruits are preferred. Feeding by fruit flies produces mushy "weeping" areas and permits secondary infestations by various diseases. Tree response to infestations can result in extensive fruit drop, thus reduced yield. Many countries have established quarantines against the medfly and will not permit importation of products from infested areas (Hogan).
             During the spring and summer of 1998, pesticides were used by federal and state agriculture authorities to eradicate Medfly infestations that had been detected in portions of five Florida counties . The Medfly Eradication Program began on April 4, 1998, with ground applications of malathion/bait and diazinon. The respective county health departments estimated that 132,000 persons resided in the areas treated with these pesticides (Surveilence).
             Malathion is an insecticide in the organophosphate group of chemicals and is widely used on many different kinds of food crops. Malathion is registered for controlling insects in...