Colin PurringtonOK, I'm off to the garage to make Houdini fly traps. Learned via reddit that Nicole Kenney of Portland, Oregon, has been busy testing attractants for several years and THE WINNER IS MALBEC. Brilliant. #MasonBees #BeeHotel #InsectHotel #HoudiniFly #cacoxenus #science #diptera #wine #malbec #drosophilidae #flies #portland
Houdini fly (Cacoxenus indagator) that I found near one of my insect hotels. Kleptoparasitic on mason bees *and* not native to the USA, so unwelcome. I've been experimenting with different types of tape to see whether I can remove them by trapping, but so far no joy. Still looking for the Goldilocks product that is tacky enough to snag small flies but doesn't affect the bees. If anyone has suggestions of brands to try, I'd be grateful. #HoudiniFly #InsectHotel #BeeHotel #insect #cacoxenus #diptera #fly #bees #nature #macrophotography
Darren Obbard is on BlueskyLots of people seem to have enjoyed #Cacoxenus today! If you go back to late november, you can find a whole advent calendar full of #Drosophilidae ! https://ecoevo.social/@DarrenObbard/109432114579284048
Darren Obbard (@[email protected])
Attached: 1 image Tomorrow! A #Drosophilid #Science #Advent of #UK #Flies with #MacroPhotography, #NaturalHistory and #Entomology facts. Pre-advent: ‘The’ fly, D. melanogaster: winner of 6 #NobelPrizes, Dmel is a global human commensal that evolved in South East #Africa in association with #Marula https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982218313629. Leaving Africa >20Kya https://academic.oup.com/gbe/article/11/3/844/5304659, it reached TH Morgan’s lab in 1908; ~1000 genomes are available https://popfly.uab.cat/ and wild Dmel can look pretty odd: https://bmcecolevol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12862-014-0179-y
Cacoxenus indagator sitting in the mouth of a cane in a 'bee hotel', where they can be found in very large numbers (early May, in the UK)
#Drosophila #Cacoxenus #Diptera #Osmia #Bee #Hymenoptera #Kleptoparasite #Entomology #Macro #MacroPhotography
#Drosophila #Cacoxenus #Diptera #Osmia #Bee #Hymenoptera #Kleptoparasite #Entomology #Macro #MacroPhotography