unknown fly - Drosophila immigrans

Drosophila immigrans - female

Fifteen years ago, I had begun to rear this species, one of the commonest "big" Drosophila in Europe, on yeast-based artificial medium in glass jars. I had soon to give up because the flies thrived so well that I could not manage such an explosive growth.
From this bad experience, I have kept in mind the typical color pattern of this cosmopolitan species. That's why I recognized it as soon as I saw this female on your both pics.

… Richard Vernier, 16 October, 2007 - 9:38pm

Thank you Richard

Wow, and here I thought I was going to have to be content with ID to genus only. Thank you.

… Gary McDonald, 16 October, 2007 - 9:41pm

Same species??

I suspect the other flies I submitted earlier

are the same species.

… Gary McDonald, 16 October, 2007 - 9:53pm

I suspect it too...

But this is difficult to prove conclusively from this angle.

… Richard Vernier, 17 October, 2007 - 6:11am

sure looks like Drosophila

I'd like to know if anyone thinks this is something other than Drosophila melanogaster (or some other Drosophila sp). I used to work in a genetics lab with them, but since I only worked with D. melanogaster I do not know about other flies. This looks just like our "wild type" (standard) stock. This is a very "ripe" female, who will be laying lots of eggs soon. You can see an egg next to her right middle leg - the eggs look like tiny grains of rice.

… joot, 16 October, 2007 - 5:32pm

Thanks joot

Your ID makes sense, it was right next to the compost bin which is swarming with little "fruit flies", and now that I look at

, it certainly looks similar to me.

… Gary McDonald, 16 October, 2007 - 5:39pm

hah-- umm...

Actually you made me wonder even more, because the thumb you posted is not a Drosophila, but is in the Lauxaniidae family. However, that one looks quite different to me... longer abdomen, longer wings, more hairs, and it doesn't have the "wild type" coloring.

… joot, 16 October, 2007 - 5:53pm

Thanks joot

Yeah, I got in too much of a hurry, didn't notice that that posting was placed in the Lauxaniidae, just saw the D. melanogaster name on the posting. Looks like BugGuide has only one image of D. melanogaster . And the upper fly in this last image does look much like my image.

… Gary McDonald, 16 October, 2007 - 6:02pm

oh my

I gather from some browsing that Drosophila is a rather huge genus. Check out this site. I bet the pictures in the guide are left at the genus level because it's so difficult to narrow it down from there. Hmph maybe I should stick to H*eteroptera.

… joot, 16 October, 2007 - 6:14pm

Wow!!

I guess I should be happy with ID to genus. Thanks for pointing out that site, I've bookmarked it for future reference.

… Gary McDonald, 16 October, 2007 - 7:09pm

Drosophila Species

I have done research in the tropics with Drosophilidae and I would conservatively predict the number of species to be over 4000. Another great site is http://www.taxodros.uzh.ch/index.php.

… cgibbs, 20 May, 2010 - 9:26pm