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Isabel Cutler | all galleries >> Galleries >> My Chinese Praying Mantis Egg Case Adventure > _MG_0157 One Week Old Fruit Fly Culture
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15-JUL-2007

_MG_0157 One Week Old Fruit Fly Culture

Today is the first day I notice the maggots as I was testing my new set of Pro Optic Extension tubes with my 90mm macro lens. I tried them with the 60mm macro and there's relatively useless (at least for my purposes) because I have to work too closely with them.
I bought one liter of the culture mix for about $12. You can make your own. Here's a recipe: http://www.petfish.net/articles/Foods_And_Feeding/fruit_fly.php Culturing the flightless fruit flies (to feed to the mantids)is almost as interesting as watching the mantids! The speed of reproduction is awesome. Click on "next" to see a two week old culture that was started with more of the fruit flies. I started this one with only 5 flies and was afraid after several days that I might not have a female among them, so I added more flies (yesterday). Fears were unfounded because these maggots had to have been generated by a female from the first 5 flies. You're advised to start a culture with at least 10 flies. Very simple to make the culture - you just mix one part of the culture with one part water and add a few grains of yeast.

Canon EOS 350D
1/125s f/20.0 at 90.0mm iso200 hide exif
Full EXIF Info
Date/Time15-Jul-2007 00:04:21
MakeCanon
ModelCanon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
Flash UsedNo
Focal Length90 mm
Exposure Time1/125 sec
Aperturef/20
ISO Equivalent200
Exposure Bias
White Balance
Metering Modematrix (5)
JPEG Quality
Exposure Programprogram (1)
Focus Distance

other sizes: small medium original auto
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