Flightless Fruitfly Culturing

Flightless fruit fly cultures, under the correct conditions, provide a steady supply of adult flies or larvae for smaller amphibian species (such as dart frogs, newts) and invertebrates (mantis nymphs, spiderlings and other young carnivores).

The most important thing to remember when culturing fruitflies is to think ahead. Cultures are usually supplied in their infancy, allowing the hobbyist to balance output against their needs. For example, if you only need a few flies a day to feed a single small mantis nymph, you will need to keep the culture cool and limit output, whereas if you are expecting an ootheca (egg sack) to hatch, you will want to accelerate the culture by leaving it in a warm place and possibly adding further food to the culture in the form of rotting banana or other fruit.

For this reason we recommend buying fruitfly cultures well in advance of your need for flies in order to allow time to establish the culture to suit your needs. This will require buying the culture at least a week before it is needed. A more reliable approach is to constantly rotate cultures, ordering a new culture as soon as the previous culture is nearing the end of its useful life.

Keeping Fruitflies Flightless

The fruitflies we sell are flightless as a result of a genetic trait which leads to deformed wings. This does not affect the nutritional value of the flies, but makes them easier to handle.

Unfortunately all it takes is a single wild fruitfly, attracted by the smell of the culture, to lay its eggs or mate with a fly from the existing culture (this can occur through the mesh) and the culture will start producing flies capable of flying. It is therefore recommeded every care is taken to preven contact between cultured flies and wild flies.