Thread subject: Diptera.info :: ID help -> Chloropidae: Oscinimorpha novakii

Posted by von Tschirnhaus on 29-04-2024 19:48
#6

Oscinimorpha novakii (Srobl, 1902; Two posts were already answered, as follows:
https://www.diptera.info/photogallery.php?photo_id=10336&rstart=0
http://www.diptera.info/forum/viewthread.phpforum_id=5&thread_id=72912&pid=308048#post_308048 .
Dror asked me about the droplets on the proboscis and I answered:
In the database "World Chloropidae Online" - https://sdei.senckenberg.de/tschirnhaus-chloropidae , 77 sources on this species are listed. Many fly species of many families were observed and photographed with such a droplet of ingested fluid. Much speculations have been published about that behaviour. Also my own observations in tropical rainforests on males of Agromyzidae, genus Phytobia, support the opinion of other dipterists. Flies suck in electrolytes containing salt or sweat of humans, washing powder remains from a washing line, eye fluid of turtles, nectar from flowers with sugar, etc. They regurgitate the fluid, let the droplet evaporate a certain time on the tip of the proboscis, the "labellum", with its pseudotracheae, then suck it in and repeat the procedure several times in order to concentrate the sugar or salt or urine of mammals or bird droppings in their stomach. By and by, the droplet becomes smaller and smaller. That method minimizes the content of fluid in the abdomen which after the first ingestion appears as if blown up like a baloon. You can also observe pairs of flies which exchange "kisses" with the simultaneous transfer of a droplet as a mating gift. In the case of this photo that might have happened before and might have tranquillised the female before copulation.