This publication reviews the history of the most damaging species of the Old World tephritids, the Mediterranean fruit fly (Medfly), and the efforts to suppress this pest in the United States and Central America through biological control. The present distributions of melon fly and oriental fruit fly are relatively restricted and include much of southeast Asia, India, Pakistan, Hawaii, and for melon fly, parts of Africa (Anonymous 1956, 1960). Medfly, in contrast, is distributed over much of Africa and presently occurs on each major continent (Anonymous 1951). Medfly damage to commercial crops is frequently documented in early entomological literature, placing Medfly in the