# Flying fruit flies



## mayanjungledog (Jun 5, 2017)

I recently purchased "producing" cultures of Golden Hydei and Turkish Gliders from an online vendor. The first time I opened both cultures, both had several fly out. I was startled, as it was unexpected. I know some varieties can revert back to flying, but I wasn't expecting two separate cultures to do that. I disposed of both cultures as my sig other will not tolerate flying bugs in the house. This happen to anyone else?


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## pa.walt (Feb 16, 2004)

you just wasted 2 cultures. gliders are what they write, they glide. or to me they do fly. this is why i don't really like them. you should of just open them outside. the flyers will fly out of container and the rest will stay. you will have to tap on the sides. plus with warm temps you will get a better chance of flyers.


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## mayanjungledog (Jun 5, 2017)

The gliders were more than "gliding" as i would expect - a few of them flew up to the ceiling and around the room. The same thing happened in the hydei culture. I tapped both cultures before opening and as soon as the tops were removed, a few ff flew out and around the room.


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## Broseph (Dec 5, 2011)

I have whatever vestigial winged melanogaster PetCo was selling a few years ago (I'm still culturing from that line). 

Mine can fly a short distance, but not well. There's some fancy sciencey stuff that goes on with tertiary protein structure at higher temps, but I also think warm flies fly better than cold flies... An extreme example would be how refrigerated fliers can't fly.

I've had cultures get a little warm and fly well enough to make a mess, but once they cool down they're fine. 

How many flightless flies would fly if warm flies could fly well?
(sorry, couldn't resist)


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## andfrogs (Apr 26, 2017)

I had this happen with one of my cultures a little while back. I closed it, brought it outside and tried to release all the "flyers." I fed from the culture thinking getting the flyers out had worked and had flyers coming out of my vivs for days. I found a thread that mentioned breeding is possible through the filters in the lids with a regular fruit fly, chalked it up to that and tossed the culture. A sister culture seeded from the same source never had any flyers nor have I had any since.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk


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## Entomologist210 (Apr 24, 2014)

I think you did the right thing. I have zero tolerance for winged fly cultures and even if you tap out the bad flies, chances are good they've mated with the flightless flies and you'll continue to have the problem.


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## mayanjungledog (Jun 5, 2017)

Thanks -I just find it annoying that two separate cultures of different species produced flying fruit flies directly from the vendor. Since they were purchased as "producing" cultures, I assume if they did mate with a flying fruit fly, it would have happened at the vendor's facility. I opened the container soon after they arrived (not long enough for them to have bred at my house) when the flyers flew out. My original question was if this has ever happened to someone else.


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## Serafim (Mar 29, 2017)

I had this happen not too long go. I purchased them from vendors at the hamburg show. I took them outside and let the fliers out feed off the remaining flies. Have not had any further issues


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