I've found a couple of dead flies firmly adhered to potato plant leaves, but this one looks different. It has some sort of thing wrapped around it and its head opened like a lid . . .
My random guess is parasitic wasp - which is good for gardening, right? - but I really have no clue. It's gross and fascinating at the same time.
Should I pull the leaf off and move it away or keep adding straw on top of whatever's going on here?
I've seen the same fly, but I never figured out what they are.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/766065/
This is a parasitic fungus which flies get, it can nearly cover them overnight. It usually happens at this time of year when it's cooler and moist. The head is flat at the back, it's just cocked forwards. If you've seen a fly washing it's head you will notice it, and it looks to be attached by a wooden peg! That's the advantage of taking lots of pics of flies like I do ;)
This message was edited Sep 27, 2008 4:28 PM
Wow, thanks for the information wallaby. It's interesting how the fungus covers them in distinctive bands like that. Or maybe that's something else going on . . .
What about the egg-looking things that are popping out from my fly's waistline? (I know waistline isn't the right term, but I'm too lazy to look up bug anatomy at the moment.) Or are those just fly guts poking out from the force of the fungus inside it? Same thing with the head? Too much fungus boiling over and - pop! off with yer 'ead?
I just came over from a thread that claypa had about a year ago on the same fly. It popped up in my "watch thread" when he reposted. Over there I speculated that it was a fungus, and it was good to come here and get my guess verified by wallaby!
wallaby - Do you know which fungus it is, and/or how the fly gets it? I've never seen this, and I am very curious.
Lol, the egg-looking things are probably blobs of fungus on the halters, flies have small balancing mechanisms behind their wings.
The 'bands' will be the joints, flies have segmented abdomens so I guess the fungus will be attacking the weaker, soft points for a start. I can't see any obvious fungus on the head, but as it's dead the head will have just fallen forward!
Here's a pic of a simialr green fly, it show the halters behind the wings and you can see the segment joints on the abdomen.
bonitin posted a similar fly recently, suunto mentioned a type of fungus but there may be more.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/905352/
Not sure ceejay how it gets it, but I imagine it's like any fungus, the spores just grow when the conditions are right! Off to google.
A link to google books gives several mentions of moisture and correct conditions,
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=uR7mYJn6etAC&pg=PA411&lpg=PA411&dq=Empusa+muscae&source=web&ots=XvcRIhUaKo&sig=hTBc67CbNP4CR9Gpo7wCqrYEwys&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=10&ct=result
Well, there you go - If you have a fly problem, all you need is this convenient fungus. As long as it doesn't attack the beneficials, I'm ok with that.
I found some pics of these fungus infected flies on bugguide last night but the 'puter froze up. The fungus might be Entomophthora. Weird!
edited out dead link - links to posts with links don't seem to work.
This message was edited Sep 27, 2008 2:29 PM
I found this: http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/ent/biocontrol/pathogens/entomophthora_m.html
Very interesting!! Thanks much!
The link didn't work, claypa, but I searched entomophthora on bugguide.net and came up with a handful of pages, including this one: http://bugguide.net/node/view/9438#5447
Here's another one about how it effects the fly's behavior: http://homepage.eircom.net/~hedgerow7/entomophthora.htm
good information, ceejay. our temps are starting to cool a bit, so the habitat is right, according to that web page.
Another good site: (Gee, they're all over the place if you know what you're looking for! LOL!)
http://www.hort.wisc.edu/mastergardener/features/insects/entomophthora/entomophora.htm
