Transcript
There’s a lot of other common vinegar flies that are out there and you probably have seen them even in your compost. Flying around rotting fruit. They look very close in size to one another but this fly is very different from other common drosophilas. The females have this saw-like ovipositor that is on the end of her abdomen and curled under and she basically unfolds it and she drills into ripe and ripening fruit on vine.
But what I’m really keying in here is when (I see one right now) there are these two spots - one on each wing - of the males. All flies only have two wings and so you can see that on the end of their wings. There is another fly that has a spot but it is placed in a different location on the wing.
There’s another couple of flies not to mistake it for. They’re actually in a totally different family. Anybody grow cherries? There’s something called a cherry fruit fly. This is not really a true fruit fly. It’s a vinegar or pumice fly that really responds to that yeast and that vinegar. The fruit fly is much larger and has a lot of bands and patterns on its wing.
Amy Deves, an entomologist with the Oregon State University Extension Service, demonstrates how to identify the spotted wing drosophila fly. Filmed and edited by Tiffany Woods.
Learn more about:
How to use netting on plants to keep off spotted wing drosophila fly.
