# worm parasites in fruit fly culture?



## infinite213 (Dec 17, 2010)

I made a culture of wild d. melanogasters and it is about 3 weeks old and seems to have thousands of very thin worms that seem to be feeding on the pupae of the flies. Does anyone know what they might be or have had a similar problem? Roundworms maybe?


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## GreenOasis (Dec 17, 2010)

Vinegar eels?

You might see if you can get a pic &amp; post it...I'm sure SOMEONE will know what they are!


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## infinite213 (Dec 17, 2010)

Unfortunately my regular camera broke and all I have is my phone camera, can't get close enough for a good shot.

Originally I made an open culture to attract the fruit flies flying around the house, I used mashed banana, vinegar, and some yeast.

I left the culture open for about a week in a glass cup until I got my culture container supplies. Now these are wild flying fruit flies so I don't know if it is a parasite of the fly or maybe from the apple cider vinegar. Are the vinegar eels just naturally occurring in the vinegar but need the yeast to grow or what? That would be pretty sick if you ask me. the worms are very thin and almost clear and range from a millimeter to a quarter inch so far. I thought at first they might be maggots but after a couple days they got bigger and there appearance is different from the maggots. There are like billions of them.


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## GreenOasis (Dec 17, 2010)

Vinegar eels are naturally occurring in unpasteurized vinegar (though, I suspect you can get them even in pasteurized vinegar that's been compromised. However, I have just read that vinegar eels feed on bacteria in the vinegar, so I doubt the ones you have are vinegar eels, if they are parasitic to your flies.

I just found this article, which might explain some of what's going on in your culture: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/07/protective-endosymbiosis-fruit-flies/


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## infinite213 (Dec 17, 2010)

Here is a pic I took with my microscope of the worms. I believe it is 100X


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## infinite213 (Dec 17, 2010)

Yes I saw that article, but that is a parasite to a different fruit fly although I suppose it could happen to any.

They may or may not be parasitic, since there are so many of them They are everywhere even on the pupae. I cant tell exactly if they are feeding on them or not. I will get some of the flies from the culture, put them under the scope and see if they are living inside of the flies.


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## infinite213 (Dec 17, 2010)

It appears that they are not parasitic but just living with the fruit flies and feeding on the culture. Here is a better pic.


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## PhilinYuma (Dec 17, 2010)

They look like vinegar eels to me (nice pic, by the way)! If they were parasites, they would be living inside the flies, or hanging on to them, and they'd be much smaller. Another reason not to use vinegar in your FF media!


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## PeterF (Dec 17, 2010)

PhilinYuma said:


> Another reason not to use vinegar in your FF media!


Are you kidding me? That's reason to DOUBLE your vinegar use in FF media.

Bonus Bugs! It's like the mystery mantis you get with orders.

I have to wonder how soupy the media needs to be for the "eels" to thrive.


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## PhilinYuma (Dec 18, 2010)

Peter J F said:


> Are you kidding me? That's reason to DOUBLE your vinegar use in FF media.
> 
> Bonus Bugs! It's like the mystery mantis you get with orders.
> 
> I have to wonder how soupy the media needs to be for the "eels" to thrive.


 :lol:  Pretty soupy, I should think! We could give the nymphs little poles and let them go fishing for vinegar eels! :boat:


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## GreenOasis (Dec 18, 2010)

Yes, after seeing them &amp; the report that they are not feasting on the fly larvae, I would tend to agree with popular vote here and say that they are vinegar eels &amp; are harmless.

How much vinegar did you put in there, anyway? :blink:


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## hibiscusmile (Dec 18, 2010)

:blink: I cannot say how sorry I am I saw this post :blink: :blink: :blink:


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## infinite213 (Dec 18, 2010)

"Apple cider vinegar, otherwise known simply as cider vinegar or ACV, is made from cider or apple must and has a brownish-yellow color. It often is sold unfiltered and unpasteurized with the mother of vinegar present, as a natural product."

"Vinegar eels are only found in unpasteurized vinegar. Vinegar that has been pasteurized no longer has the live bacterial and yeast culture that these nematodes require for sustenance."

- Wikipedia

So we can conclude that these are in fact vinegar eels.

I'm not sure how much vinegar I used but that mixed with the yeast and mashed banana and the maggots regurgitating and making the culture more soupy would present a rich environment for the eels to thrive.

So If you want vinegar eels you know what to do!

Now what to do with this culture?


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## infinite213 (Dec 18, 2010)

Salt and Vinegar eel chips anyone.....


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## hibiscusmile (Dec 18, 2010)

"Silence" :blink: :lol:


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## MantidLord (Dec 18, 2010)

Wow, I use apple cider vinegar and red wine vinegar for my cultures all the time, so far no problems. Let's hope I don't jinx it. Even though they're harmless, I still wouldn't want them. Just like I didn't like the bulb mites infesting my cultures (which mysteriously went away).


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## MantidLord (Dec 18, 2010)

Sorry, double post.


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## PhilinYuma (Dec 18, 2010)

MantidLord said:


> Wow, I use apple cider vinegar and red wine vinegar for my cultures all the time, so far no problems. Let's hope I don't jinx it. Even though they're harmless, I still wouldn't want them. Just like I didn't like the bulb mites infesting my cultures (which mysteriously went away).


This forum has had so many interesting threads lately!

I used to grow vinegar eels to feed to new-born bettas. I used (expensive!) unfiltered unpasteurized cider vinegar with "mother of vinegar' in it. You can still get it in Organic Oddness stores, Bragg sells it in qrt (1000cc) jars.

Pasturized vinegar will not support vinegar eels, and all the vinegar that you buy in the supermart is pasturized ( we are so compulsively cleanly!), but gio rectified that problem by adding yeast. I still have no idea how the eels got into the mix, though!


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## PeterF (Dec 18, 2010)

PhilinYuma said:


> I still have no idea how the eels got into the mix, though!


Can it travel on wild fruitflies, as eggs? Bugs have done stranger things.


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## PhilinYuma (Dec 19, 2010)

Peter J F said:


> Can it travel on wild fruitflies, as eggs? Bugs have done stranger things.


That makes as much sense to me as anything. I know that yeast is transmitted in that way.


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## PeterF (Dec 19, 2010)

I was thinking about this in bed last night (ok, so I have a problem). Could the eggs survive the pasteurization process? Meaning they are still in the vinegar. And then hatch later, or possibly hatch in the presence of food?


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## PhilinYuma (Dec 19, 2010)

Peter J F said:


> I was thinking about this in bed last night (ok, so I have a problem). Could the eggs survive the pasteurization process? Meaning they are still in the vinegar. And then hatch later, or possibly hatch in the presence of food?


Interesting thought, though they'd have to survive more than pasteurization.

You could get some worms from Carolina or whomever you do business with, and do your own pasteurization. I'm not sure what it is these days or whether the time/temp for vinegar is different from milk, but you could use a water bath and run it at 160F for 16 mins and chill it to 40F for 4mins, and see if the critters survived. Of course, though, the vinegar is filtered as well. I don't know whether they run it through a huge mechanical filter or simply centrifuge it. At any rate, if the pasteurization kills the eggs (and I'm not at all sure that it will) then you don't have to worry about the second part.


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## infinite213 (Dec 19, 2010)

Well apple cider vinegar is not pasturized and still contains some mother of vinegar and you can get it at any store. So the eels can come from the apple cider vinegar.


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## infinite213 (Dec 29, 2010)

Another paradigm: I have found that the vinegar eels are only in the cultures that contain the wild D. Melanogasters.

I have used the same apple cider vinegar in all of my cultures, the eels do not show up in the other cultures. So maybe they are not vinegar eels, but nematodes? Anyone have any input on that?


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## PhilinYuma (Dec 29, 2010)

gio said:


> Another paradigm: I have found that the vinegar eels are only in the cultures that contain the wild D. Melanogasters.
> 
> I have used the same apple cider vinegar in all of my cultures, the eels do not show up in the other cultures. So maybe they are not vinegar eels, but nematodes? Anyone have any input on that?


Vinegar eels are nematodes, so that's not an issue. Your useful observation supports Peter J.F.'s suggestion (post #19) that they come from eggs deposited first on the FF larvea and move firstonto the pupae and then on the eclosing flies, in the same way that we know that yeast spores can be transmitted. I posted an old article a while back in which the author sterilized ff pupae --without killing the flies inside -- and found that the medium used by the eclosed flies contained no introduced yeast, whereas a medium used by flies from unsterilized pupae did. This certainly solves the riddle of how they could have been carried in, let alone live in, pasteurized vinegar.

Another possibility is that they were deposited on the flies by Intergalactic Space Nematodes (ISNs). They will sometimes try out their World Domination Scheme (WDS) by infecting something inconsequential like an FF culture, and if that works (and it obviously does) they will next send down a Probe (P) which will insert their eggs into your (wait for it!) nose, from whence they will invade and eat your brain. Slowly.

Thanks for making this interesting post before it is too late (like tomorrow)!


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## hibiscusmile (Dec 29, 2010)

I thought I was crazy when I brought my first maggot Phil, if I culture vinegar eels, I will have comfirmation !  :tt2: :stuart:


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## warpdrive (Dec 29, 2010)

PhilinYuma said:


> Vinegar eels are nematodes, so that's not an issue. Your useful observation supports Peter J.F.'s suggestion (post #19) that they come from eggs deposited first on the FF larvea and move firstonto the pupae and then on the eclosing flies, in the same way that we know that yeast spores can be transmitted. I posted an old article a while back in which the author sterilized ff pupae --without killing the flies inside -- and found that the medium used by the eclosed flies contained no introduced yeast, whereas a medium used by flies from unsterilized pupae did. This certainly solves the riddle of how they could have been carried in, let alone live in, pasteurized vinegar.
> 
> Another possibility is that they were deposited on the flies by Intergalactic Space Nematodes (ISNs). They will sometimes try out their World Domination Scheme (WDS) by infecting something inconsequential like an FF culture, and if that works (and it obviously does) they will next send down a Probe (P) which will insert their eggs into your (wait for it!) nose, from whence they will invade and eat your brain. Slowly.
> 
> Thanks for making this interesting post before it is too late (like tomorrow)!


And my friends think I'm nuts for saying that all the UFOs that have been seen through out time contain starving mantids that are here to steal our natural resource...insects.

Harry


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## PeterF (Dec 29, 2010)

PhilinYuma said:


> Your useful observation supports Peter J.F.'s suggestion (post #19) that they come from eggs deposited first on the FF larvea and move firstonto the pupae and then on the eclosing flies, in the same way that we know that yeast spores can be transmitted.


Let's not tell the Professor.


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## PhilinYuma (Dec 29, 2010)

Peter J F said:


> Let's not tell the Professor.


Oh, do, do! Submit it as an experimental proposal. Show that wild mel cultures contain the little buggers (you'll have to get a culture from gio) and that commercial mels don't; contaminate a commercial culture with vinegar (lots and lots of vinegar!) from a wild mel culture, and see if successive generations transmit the little buggers. You can dress it up with a nice MVA and a pretty graph, and you should be ready for a sponsored article in the Vinegar Eel Gazette!


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## infinite213 (Jan 7, 2011)

Did an experiment to see if vinegar eels would come straight from the vinegar without any fruit flies.

Took a 32oz cup with cloth lid mixed one part apple cider vinegar to one part sugar water and then mixed in some yeast.

After 2 weeks no vinegar eels. So the nematodes definitely come from the wild fruit flies. Started using white vinegar in the cultures anyways.


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## PhilinYuma (Jan 7, 2011)

Dang! It's so nice to see someone doing an experiment instead of resorting to IMHO! Biology experimenets nowadays have become so sophisticated and use so much math that many amateurs, like us, can be put off, but J. Henri Fabre did relatively simple experiments and taught us a lot about insects in the process.


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## infinite213 (Jan 7, 2011)

Yeah I cant seem to mess with anything without doing experiments. Speaking of Biology (I think Botany is under Biology right?)

Off topic but one of the coolest things I think is plant tissue culturing. I would love to have the environment and resources to do that. One unique thing about plants is that they can regenerate an entire plant out of a few meristem cells. But that's another topic all together.


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