I observed an interesting phenomenon in the Rain Forest of Western Ghat, India. The male fly usually waits, for a long time, sometimes for hours, inside the flower and it defends its little territory against other males, actively. When a female fly comes in, it starts its elaborate dancing. I read a bit about Hawaiian Drosophila's mating behavior, where they defend leaf surface (if I am not wrong). But I never came across any literature where insects are using flower as a site for male display and competition (lek). It poses interesting questions like "how long the male should wait inside a flower?" (If it waits too long in the "wrong" flower, then it will be in "trouble" and if it is too impatient then also, I guess. So there should be an optimum). Does anybody have any suggestion, information, thought or reference to share?
You're talking of a drosophilid fly ? There are several species of drosophilid do this - it is quite well known (e.g. D. elegans, S. fuscovittata).
Yes, most probably it is a Drosophilid fly. Can you please send me a link of a paper? Thanks for your answer.
I don't think there is a published reference for this. Perhaps there's one back in the 1950s as it's one of those things that are so long established that it's part of Drosophila workers' 'general knowledge'. (Similarly, I don't think there's a specific published reference for mongoose preying on snakes - it's just known that they do.)
However, i'll look through my publiscations database and see what i can find.
Hallo Simon,
That's very interesting. Several families of flies display like this Dolichopodidae (inc. former Microphoridae), Empididae, Hybotidae. There's a large literature on it. There are also a number of videos of the behaviour - some available on the web. If you ever have time, please look at http://www.diptera.info/photogallery.php and see if the flies you saw resembled any of the photos. If you also look at the Drosophilidae pictures on this site and think that your flies on Dusty Miller looked more like them I'd be really interested ! Then I'd ask you to catch some and give them to one of my friends at La Trobe for identification. But my guess is that the flies you saw were Dolichopodidae. I wonder what effect the dancing flies might have on Dusty Miller pollination ? Do they pollinate themselves or perhaps block access by 'real' pollinating insect species ?
thanks for the post, Andrew
During dancing they touch reproductive parts of the flower, but they carry the pollen or not, no idea.
Thank you all.
Hallo again Simon,
By 'perpendicular' do you mean parallel to the substrate or vertically at right angles to the substrate ? Do they look anything like the picture here http://life.bio.sunysb.edu/ee/truelab/True_Lab.html and is the behaviour at all like that in the videos you can access from this page ?
If the fly you've seen is a drosophilid my colleagues at La Trobe would be very interested - and so would I !
Thanks ! I'm intruiged. I'm interested in getting these flies identified. If you ever see them again on this plant could you please perhaps collect a few, or even photo them fairly close up, and get a taxonomist of the Diptera to check them ?
Thanks Simon,
Pretty flies ! But is this sepsid the same as the fly mentioned from the Western Ghat ? I know Rudi Meier's paper but the other one is useful.
I attach a picture of D. elegans displaying in a flower. The males also have black wing tips.
The D. elegans is a digital photo by my field assistant Takao in Iriomotejima.
I've collected the specimens and identified them. I'm an entomolgist with emphasis on drosophilidae.
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