You'll undoubtedly be glad to know that tephritidae is basically a fancy way of saying "fruit fly". [Lest you jump to any conclusions about my background in biology, I must confess that I read the word "tephritidae" for the first time on wikipedia about 5 minutes ago. ]
Here's the deal: we have these little flies in our house. About half way between the size of a fruit fly and a mosquito. They have big black wings, fly very slowly, and tend to hang out in the kitchen. I read on wikipedia that there is such thing as a "larger fruit fly" and I conclude that my little guests must belong to this group. We've been consuming incredible amounts of yummy fruit (especially the peaches and mangoes and lychee and watermelon and... ) and I think that probably explains the flies.
Bad news for the little black flies is that I also read about a "make your own fruit fly trap" and I intend to put it to work in just a few minutes! I think we've probably got ten or fifteen in the apartment right now, and I'm hoping to catch them all with my home made trap, so stay tuned and I'll let you know how successful I am :)
PS - I do not feel the slightest bit hard-hearted about killing these little bugs. Wikipedia informs me that their life span is about a week anyways, so it's not like they have a lot to loose :)
2 comments:
Hey, good luck with your tephritidae grande trap. I'm imagining something similar to sticky fly trap paper that used to hang from the ceilings in all good kitchens. A small price to pay for lots of fresh fruit in the house! Love, Mom/Grandmama
ok, don't hold out on us... what's the homemade trap??? I just made two loaves of banana bread from 12 rotten bananas that a friend (one) brought to my house (like we can eat 12 bananas before they go bad!)... anyhow, there were fruit flies everywhere, I almost barfed! What's the trap?
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