Kobold vor NH4 - 4-4-2022 at 20:40
Today I found a dead fly on the window, and this strange white stuff which looked like it had exploded out of the fly. I had no idea what it was so I
took some and put it under my microscope, small spheres with green insides, looked like some kind of spore to me. Looked it up and bam:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entomophthora_muscae
It's pretty interesting. I caught a fly that was flying around, got some of the spores on the end of a dissection probe and carefully poked it into
the fly to infect it.
I put the little dude in a big glass container. I got another one and did the same to it and put him in with the other one, now I just need to keep
them alive for a couple of days for the fungus to grow.
It's amazing on how the fungus can just take over the fly. I took a photo of the dead fly's leg under the microscope and you can see the tiny little
"cannons" which have one of the fastest fluid ejection speeds known in nature! About 10m/s!
I will see how long the spores stay viable for, [according to wikipedia the fungus is sensitive to temperature, it does not say what temperatures
though] and if they last more than 2 weeks then If anyone wants them i will be happy to share some. I am in Australia so overseas posting might not be
a good idea, depending on the customs, I am not sure on the legality of sending spores in the mail. The other option would be to send an infected fly
as they live for about 5 days before they die and the fungus releases its spores, but I don't know if thats very legal either, I shall have to look
that up.
I will keep you updated on the progress of the flies
[Edited on 5-4-2022 by Kobold vor NH4]
Kobold vor NH4 - 9-4-2022 at 05:50
Well I had three Flies in the jar, two of them were from the Calliphoridae family of flies, only one of the was inoculated with the fungus the other
was not. The third fly was from the Sarcophagidae family, and was inoculated.
After the capture day the Calliphoridae that was not inoculated died, and looked as though it had layed eggs. I removed the body and the eggs.
Day 3 The inoculated Calliphoridae also died and I left the body still in the jar in case the fungus still does its thing, the Sarcophagidae was still
flying around with lots of energy.
Day 4 The Sarcophagidae had died, the body was left and the food tray removed.
Day 5 Nothing has changed.
I gave them a decent size container, but maybe them being in captivity combined with the fungus weakened them enough to kill them. Hopefully the
fungus will still sprout.