An Interesting Observation

[Brazilian_Magewick]

So I conducted an experiment....

I hatched 4 house flies

2 hatched normal

and

2 hatched, but I pulled of the white mucus that was attached to their hind legs, I'm actually not sure what this "mucus"is (but that's what I'm calling it). It was holding the flies 2 posterior legs inside of the pupa case. Normally when I see a fly hatch they shake it off after awhile, and I didn't let them do it.

anyway...

2 of the flies developed normal wings and the other 2 didn't have their wings developed much at all. I would describe them as little buds no more than a tenth of the size of the rest of the fly. They don't really jump or crawl much, they tend to just hang out on the side of the cage and occasionally they fumble around in the substrate.

Does anyone else have any knowledge on the subject? I'd like to think that I discovered some developmental properties of houseflies. Though I'm also concerned that maybe some flightless flies got shipped with my regular ones.

 

[aNisip]

Well for the houseflies the 'mucus' is part of their exoskeleton ...like they molt and turn from maggot to fly...leaving the exoskeleton behind...like when a mantis molts...when an insect molts, certain maneuvers have to happen at certain times and for certain times during the molt...when you interrupted the 'molt' (excise) and certain things didn't happen when they were suppossed to...or like when a mantis molts, their exoskeleton is one piece, so maybe when u pulled the mucus of the legs, it didn't come off in one piece like normal and their wings didn't get to expand and dry out...you know what I mean? Sorry for the long explanation

And for the ff scenario, the wingless ffs u saw in ur winged culture were the result of a genetic mutation...wild type gives you the winged individuals and when that many ffs reproduce ur bound to get some recessive genetic mutations in the form of flightless ffs...and then those individuals mate their recessive genes are passed on and eventually resulting in more wingless ffs, but bc wild type (flight capable) have a dominant gene, so you'll end up with more winged individuals...

All the best,

Andrew

 

[Rick]

Could possibly just be that those flies had problems developing their wings due to some environmental condition that was not optimal.

 

[Krissim Klaw]

If you are keeping the pupae in the fridge my guess is that batch is reaching the end of their ability to survive. Eventually if you don't feed them in time they will die off even if refrigerated. As you reach the end of that time period you will get more and more that hatch with deformed wings and then ones that won't hatch at all when you thaw them out. Eventually all the remainders will die off.

 

[petoly]

most likely the maggots left their food medium prematurely, and they pupated and eclosed. That's how I make wingless houseflies/blue bottle flies on purpose. Spray their medium wet, they come out early. Pupate and hatch without wings.