Three days ago, I Windex-ed™ a fly to death. Larvae squirmed out of its abdomen. I saved these juveniles in a small jar and have been fattening them on a diet of moistened toilet paper and peanut butter. And fat they have grown, but pupate they have not. I am waiting to see what they’ll mature into.
I thought flies laid eggs. Are there oviparous species of these pests? Or am I witness to a gruesome parasitosis?
Please,someone tell me what the stork will bring…my wife wants to throw out the increasingly vile experiment.
There are several families of flie that are partly or totally viviparous so you’ll have to provide a more detailed description of the parent if you want to know what they are. But basically their going to pupate into whatever the parent was.
dude! you really need a better hobby! try a nice walk in the park, or collect stamps. astronomy is fun and educational, too!
try this: catch a fly alive, drown him carefully (be sure hes doesn’t have any little air bubbles stuck to him to live off). once you are sure of his demise, bury him in ordinary table salt. wait, watch and be amazed! (not to mention disturbed) FUCKIN’ FRANKEN-FLY!
have fun! (please be sure to post results of your experiment with the maggys and this new water game above)
Well, there was a fly bugging me all day. I caught it, put it in a zip-lock baggy full of water until it quit moving, and it’s legs pulled up dead like. I left it on a piece of toilet paper to dry a bit, it was completely non-responsive. I transfered it to another zip-lock baggy with table salt, it’s over there kicking around…now it’s walking around. Cleaning the salt out of it’s eyes now. To the trash with it.
Well, I’m no entomologist, but I did enough of a web search to learn that there are flies that look like bees, wasps, and other more respectable diptera. This one looked like a fly, that’s what it’s business card and press kit said anyway. Th parent was about 7 to 10mm long, a dull black without any metallic sheen, eyes were likewise dark. As soon as the fly twitched its last, the tiny 2mm larvae started squirming out of its posterior. At crude estimate, there were perhaps 10-20 larvae emerging over a 5 minute period, I saved no more than 10. The largest orphans are now nearly a centimeter long and maybe 2-3mm wide. I was really hoping to see some sort of Ridley Scott style endoparasite come out of this fly…but maggots beget flies, mostly. So I’ll wait and see.
Isn’t life beautiful?
As for the wife, she’s away from home…that’s the only way a married guy can get away with starting up a larva farm. I made the mistake of telling her about the little maggotoire I’m keeping and come Friday I’ll have to find a good hiding place for the young’uns.
Viviparity occurs in at least 22 families of Diptera, and it is the primary form of reproduction in six. One of the commonest viviparous families is the Sarcophagidae, or Flesh Flies. They typically have longitudinal black and gray stripes on the thorax and a checkered abdomen, and so your fly may be something else.
I got out a good flashlight and a hand lens…it’s probably a Sarcophagid. There are grey longitudinal stripes on the back of the thorax. Couldn’t say about the checkered belly though.
These flesh maggots seem pretty happy with roasted honey nut Skippy and (clean) toilet paper.
They are getting disgustingly huge. I think I might have to terminate this incubation…I get queasy looking at the roiling white bodies.
So, in the interest of democracy, Thumbs-Up or Thumbs-Down?
And…I’ll take suggestions on a creative final exit for the brood.
I say thumbs up in the interest of science. If you choose otherwise, I’d say the creative final exit would be a nice larva casserole. You can’t waste all that good protein!
