Re: [PMX:#] Re: [Killietalk] Flies in my culture :(

[Barry Cooper <bjc3 at cornell_edu>]

Lee,

Pretty hard to speciate the flies from that photo. I will say that the 
pupae (the encased things) resemble those I see with the little flies that 
have bugged me (pun intended). My flies get around in near permanent 
copulation, though. The pupae, I find, are resistant to immersion in water 
and if you start a new culture from worms collected from an infested 
culture, you will carry over pupae, which continue the infestation. Before 
I got onto the Bird Protector method, I actually carefully started new 
cultures by picking up worms one at a time in a dropper under a dissecting 
microscope to avoid this problem.

By the way, I find a good way to minimize access of bugs to cultures is to 
keep them in small pillow cases. I bought several from WallyMart that have 
zipped openings. I put the shoebox with a grindal worm culture in such a 
pillow case. It allows air in but is far too tightly woven to allow flies 
in. Much better than cheese cloth.

Barry
At 01:12 PM 9/16/2003 -0400, you wrote:

> In a message dated 9/16/03 12:05:28 PM, LeeH920226 at aol_com writes:
>
> <<  I will
> try to take a picture of a fly and larva for identification purposes. >>
>
> I have uploaded to the members gallery a picture of the lid of a microworm
> culture that shows one fly at the top and several larvae and pupae on the lid.
>
> Lee Harper
> Media, PA


Barry J. Cooper, Prof. Emeritus, Dept. Biomedical Sciences, Cornell University
Adjunct faculty, College of Veterinary Medicine, Oregon State University
Home address: 27505 Riggs Hill Rd., Sweet Home, OR 97386 (bjc3 at cornell_edu)