Culturing Awkward Drosophila Species

John Skillcorn
Costa Rica
Last update: 17 August, 2002

And what of those species which are not happy spending their days in a small milk bottle?  There are techniques for culturing them also.

The diagram below shows a cage developed by Prof. Shorrocks for maintaining those species which require a slightly different environment to the average species of Drosophila.  It is basically a plastic sandwich box into which have been bored holes in order to accept glass tubes (75mm x 25mm) of food medium of various sorts.  The size of the holes are such that these tubes are held in place fairly tightly.  Ventilation is provided by means of fine, nylon curtain material.

The tube fitted to the side of the box can be kept empty for removing flies, or for joining two cages together.

Simple population cage made from
plastic sandwich box

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A more elaborate design of the same sort of cage is shown in the drawing below.  It is made from sheets of clear Perspex, but the food tubes are held in place by a sandwich of rubber sheeting between two sheets of Perspex.  The holes in the rubber sheet are slightly smaller than the ones in the Perspex itself, and so hold the food tubes in place while forming a tight seal.

A more complex population cage made
from sheet Perspex

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Drosophila subsilvestris
This species has been kept in the laboratory by Basden (1954a) in the following manner:

They are maintained in population cages where one of the food tubes contains 4cm³ of honey with a wisp of dry cotton wool on top on which the flies can stand when the honey liquefies.  Another tubes should contain cotton wool soaked in water for drinking.  Wide tubes intended for larval development contain prepared apple and Drosophila medium in equal proportions, but unmixed.  The wet cotton wool will need moistening occasionally and a new food tube for egg-laying should be added and a spent one removed each week.

Drosophila deflexa
Can be maintained in a similar way to D. subsilvestris above but without the honey.  However, this species is more difficult due to the fact that the larvae go into diapause from about October to June (Northern Hemisphere).

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Basden, E.B. 1954a The distribution and biology of Drosophilidae (Diptera) in Scotland, including a new species of Drosophila. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 62, 602-654. Back