Spotted Wing Fruit Fly (Drosophila suzukii) Ovipositor

I promise, this is the last post on spotted wing fruit flies. Just one more interesting detail: the female has a serrated ovipositor. This allows her to saw into the skin of a fresh berry, and then deposit an egg into the hole that she creates. The eggs hatch and pupae eat the berry turning it into a mushy mess.


You can see the saw like blades on the ovipositor in the shot below.



serrated ovipositor of a female spotted wing fruit fly (Drosophila suzukii)

Spotted Wing Fruit Fly (Drosophila suzukii) Version 2

I recently purchased a new laser trigger system to use in high-speed photography – it is considerably more advanced than the old laser system I was using. 


When the asian fruit flies (from yesterday's post) were delivered to my home studio, I had just a few hours to get a number of technically challenging photographs including high-speed shots of the flies in flight. I have been doing this for years, but setting up this system is not easy, and I can spend five hours or more just getting everything calibrated and running.


Adding to this particular challenge is the scale of a fruit fly. They are little specks when viewed with the naked eye. And they are incredibly fast. As one moves down in scale, the technical challenged of focus, speed, and trigger response become acute. 


The StopShot laser system, built by Paul DeZeeuw made several of my technical challenges much easier to deal with, and I was able to nail some high-speed shots of the fruit flies in action. I was up till 2AM getting the shots, but I made the deadline.



A female spotted wing fruit fly (Drosophila suzukii) approaching a fresh strawberry



A male spotted wing fruit fly (Drosophila suzukii) approaching a fresh strawberry.

Spotted Wing Fruit Fly (Drosophila suzukii)

These images result from an assignment to photograph an invasive fruit fly that threatens fruit and berry crops. Unlike domestic fruit flies that typically attack decaying fruit, these prefer fresh and ripening fruit. They can turn a fresh berry crop into mush in just a few days. 


Originally called asian fruit flies, they are a new, invasive species that threatens agriculture across North America.


Fruit flies are tiny. Doing an insect portrait at this scale is a serious technical challenge, and I was unsure that I could pull off by the assigned deadline. I won't bore you with all of the technical details, but I used the same stacking technique discussed in yesterday's post.



portrait of a female spotted wing fruit fly (Drosophila suzukii)



portrait of a female spotted wing fruit fly (Drosophila suzukii)



portrait of a male spotted wing fruit fly (Drosophila suzukii)