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)