Can somebody explain the fruit thing? I’ve seen fruit flies demolish fresh fruit. The amount of yeast biomass on them must be negligible at that point. Do the eggs/larvae spread the yeast before they start eating?
There’s even the old Marx brothers joke “time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana”
The fruit fly trap taught to me by an entomologist friend is baited with wine, suggesting the fruit flies want fermenting fruit
The trap: get a plastic fizzy drink bottle; bigger is better
Cut off the top. The cut piece is a cone
Place the cone (the top piece) upside down on the rest of the bottle
Sticky tape the joint
Bait with cheap wine or leftover wine or beer. The bait is poured down the funnel into the trap
Her tastes were revealed in the description of baiting the trap — she specified red wine, but I have tested with various booze and fruit flies have no taste, they’ll go for anything. You could probably extract bait from the sourdough starter you made in lockdown and kept alive despite never making bread after that first try
The fruit flies you’ve seen eating fresh fruit are probably Drosophila suzukii (spotted wing fruit fly). Most (all?) other Drosophila species (including the model organism Drosophila melanogaster) only feed on rotting fruit. Though they’ll consume the sugars too, not just the microorganisms. So standard lab diets include sugar along with yeast and often cornmeal.
There are also some more distantly related flies that feed on fresh fruit and are commonly called fruit flies, eg Ceratitis capitata (Mediterranean fruit fly)
I’m sure the meme is apocryphal, and it’s not entirely correct. Fruit flies do eat yeast, yes…but they also eat the sugars in the fermenting fruit, not just the microorganisms causing fruit decay. I don’t know about the larvae at all, though.
Can somebody explain the fruit thing? I’ve seen fruit flies demolish fresh fruit. The amount of yeast biomass on them must be negligible at that point. Do the eggs/larvae spread the yeast before they start eating?
There’s even the old Marx brothers joke “time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana”
The fruit fly trap taught to me by an entomologist friend is baited with wine, suggesting the fruit flies want fermenting fruit
The trap: get a plastic fizzy drink bottle; bigger is better
Cut off the top. The cut piece is a cone
Place the cone (the top piece) upside down on the rest of the bottle
Sticky tape the joint
Bait with cheap wine or leftover wine or beer. The bait is poured down the funnel into the trap
Her tastes were revealed in the description of baiting the trap — she specified red wine, but I have tested with various booze and fruit flies have no taste, they’ll go for anything. You could probably extract bait from the sourdough starter you made in lockdown and kept alive despite never making bread after that first try
Doesn’t even have to be actual booze. Apple cider vinegar + a drop of dawn dish soap works a treat.
I guess not everyone has easy access to booze
The fruit flies you’ve seen eating fresh fruit are probably Drosophila suzukii (spotted wing fruit fly). Most (all?) other Drosophila species (including the model organism Drosophila melanogaster) only feed on rotting fruit. Though they’ll consume the sugars too, not just the microorganisms. So standard lab diets include sugar along with yeast and often cornmeal.
There are also some more distantly related flies that feed on fresh fruit and are commonly called fruit flies, eg Ceratitis capitata (Mediterranean fruit fly)
I’m sure the meme is apocryphal, and it’s not entirely correct. Fruit flies do eat yeast, yes…but they also eat the sugars in the fermenting fruit, not just the microorganisms causing fruit decay. I don’t know about the larvae at all, though.