i boughtsome fruit fly cultures a few weeks back in preparation for some otheca hatches and young nymphs arriving. two of them were pretty much exhausted, but i bought them for the sheer number of flies which was more useful to me than a young culture as i planned to start some of my own anyway. i noticed in one of these exhausted cultures some oversized maggots that i assumed were greenbottle maggots as i had read about this hapening before (i just tried searching for the thread but can't find it, maybe some of you will remember it).
anyway yesterday and today these greenbottles started hatching out. today i was transfering them to a larger clean container to feed them up with honey before feeding them on when i noticed their eyes were light and mottled. closer inspection revealed their eyes were infested with mites, presumably left over from the exhausted fruit fly culture. i tried to get a picture, this is the best i could do as its obviously very small and i dont have a dedicated macro lens:
i just found this quite interesting because as far as i was aware, mites in fruit fly cultures simply competed with fruit flies for food right? are they somehow eating the greenbottles eyes, or is it just a cool place to hang out?
ps - the flies don't seem too bothered (not as bothered as i would be if i had things eating my eyes) and feed like normal, buzz around occasionaly, which is what makes me question whether the mites are actually eating or just hitching a ride.
anyway yesterday and today these greenbottles started hatching out. today i was transfering them to a larger clean container to feed them up with honey before feeding them on when i noticed their eyes were light and mottled. closer inspection revealed their eyes were infested with mites, presumably left over from the exhausted fruit fly culture. i tried to get a picture, this is the best i could do as its obviously very small and i dont have a dedicated macro lens:
i just found this quite interesting because as far as i was aware, mites in fruit fly cultures simply competed with fruit flies for food right? are they somehow eating the greenbottles eyes, or is it just a cool place to hang out?
ps - the flies don't seem too bothered (not as bothered as i would be if i had things eating my eyes) and feed like normal, buzz around occasionaly, which is what makes me question whether the mites are actually eating or just hitching a ride.
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