Two halves of a tomato kept in a plate to attract the six times Nobel prize winning fruitfly( Drosophila melanogaster ).The plate is kept on the dining table where fruits are kept.Homelab Kolkata BatulP. 23rd September 2024
The eyes are looking tomato red,there are black stripes on the abdomen and the belly looks milky white and big.It maybe a pregnant female.Lets trap it.Homelab Kolkata BatulP 24/9/24
The gravid fly with which I started my single line culture Shehre in Sept 24.
close up of my pregnant fruitfly. Homelab Kolkata BatulP 25th Sept,2024
A Tissue Paper was used to soak water & keep the bottle dry as suggested by collaborator Rahul Khushwaha. About 20 pupae formed light brown in colour today morning 29/9/24.All the pupae are on the tissue paper and none on the glass surface.Homelab Kolkata BatulP.
In the centre we can see the dead mother fruitfly
Tomato Rava Sugar Vinegar Medium ready to transfer first generation of Shehre flies pic 2nd Oct,2024 Homelab Kolkata BatulP
5th October 2024. 12.45pm lunch time for my flies.Cube homelab Kolkata BatulP
Flies are gravid in each bottle 11th October 2024
RK - What is the ratio of male and female in the culture bottles? Are there enough males to fertilise the females?
RK - 1:3 ratio of males to females work. sometimes cultures are slow if the males are less in number or are sterile, reproductive defects.
Breaking News from homelab Kolkata,13/10/24 Pupae formed in bottle A after 12 days of transferring 1day old flies. So these flies must have laid eggs when they 8days old. I came across a reference that says drosophila bipectinata flies mate more successfully in the middle age rather than early adulthood,this could b the reason for the next generation taking so much longer. Now the next batch of flies should produce quickly.
Female age influence on mating success, courtship activities, mating latency, copulation duration, fecundity, ovarioles number, and wing length has been studied using isofemale lines of Drosophila bipectinata collected at three different localities. It was observed that in all localities, middle-aged D. bipectinata females had significantly greater mating success, showed less rejection responses to courting male, mated faster, copulated longer, and had greater fecundity and ovariole number than young and old-aged females. Further, old-aged females had comparatively less fitness traits than young age females. This research suggests the occurrence of age specific female reproductive success as follows: middle-aged > young > old-aged.
Link to Reference - https://academic.oup.com/jinsectscience/article/11/1/132/2493493
Length of 3rd instar larva 4mm 14.10.2024
Himanshu joshi - “The Drosophila bipectinata species complex belongs to the ananassae subgroup of the melanogaster species group (Genus Drosophila, Subgenus Sophophora). The members of the complex are: D. bipectinata, D. parabipectinata, D. malerkotliana, and D. pseudoananassae”
Reference - Drosophila bipectinata species complex - PubMed
The second generation of single line fruitfly culture transferred to new bottles today 21/10/24 morning. Since a couple of days these flies keep sitting on the food in the morning from 10am till 1.30pm.Why are they feeding for so long or is it a social activity.In one video we can see a fly flicking it’s wings up and vibrating it.Homelab Kolkata BatulP
The number of flies on the medium has become very few compared to day time till 3pm the medium was the preferable place in the bottle where flies were found.Sunset in Kolkata is 5.15pm.Batulp 21/10/24
Wandering larvae and pupae seen in the A2 single line culture today 26/10/24 at 7.30am.This bottle was set up with flies born on 18th Oct,In eight days pupa is formed in the next 4 days the next generation should be born.Homelab Kolkata BatulP
The Shehre flies were cultured upto 22nd generation…story to be continued