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Wednesday, July 5, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Tales from a
Sisters
Naturalist
by Jim Anderson
Flies aren’t just
flies…
The tachinid fly is a hum-
dinger of an insect. When
a beautiful giant of the fly
world came to rest on my
wife, Sue’s, back near the
Chewucan River I whispered
in her ear, “Don’t move,
there’s a magnificent fly on
your back, I need to photo-
graph it.”
Swat the next fly you see,
hard enough to stun it but
not kill it, and slap it under a
magnifying glass.
The scientific order of
flies is Diptera, which in
Latin means, “two wings.”
In the world of science that’s
a huge “order” of insects that
comprises the two-winged
or true flies — in which
the hindwings have been
reduced to form balancing
organs (halteres). Now, take
a look at those halteres.
Astounding, aren’t
they? Just a stalk of chi-
tin (insect skeleton) with a
balancing knob on the end,
when the wings go up, the
halteres go down, VERY
rapidly).
Without that balancer
flies could not fly, or per-
form the sudden changes in
attitude and direction that
they do. According to ento-
mologists (scientists who
study insects) there are over
150,000 different kinds of
flies known — but the cur-
rent estimates are that there
may be more than one mil-
lion(!) species living on
Planet Earth today.
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far and the fly is still under
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your magnifying glass, take
a look at the abdomen (that’s
the rear end) you may notice
tiny slits on the sides; that’s
the fly’s breathing mecha-
nism, and it gets even better
as you explore the body of
that pestiferous insect that
drives some of us nuts. Look
at those antennae!
Oh, yes, lest I forget, mos-
quitoes are also “true flies.”
But it’s only the females
that suck your blood; the
males are flower-lovers and
among our more important
pollinators. Oh, yes, Mother
Nature’s multifaceted; it was
designed that way.
The tachinidae are a
large and variable fam-
ily of flies with more than
8,200 known species having
been described in just North
America alone. Flies in this
family commonly are called
tachina flies or simply tachi-
nids, and as far as is known,
they all are “protelean para-
sitoids,” which means they
are parasites of butterflies
and other insects.
Several years back
California sister butter-
flies emerged in unprec-
edented numbers through-
out Northern California
and Oregon. There were so
many millions flying around
that the California Highway
Department installed spe-
cial washing machines along
I-5 at Weed to clean the
butterflies out of the radia-
tors of trucks so they didn’t
overheat.
In Bend, the butterflies
descended by the tens of
thousands into the Shevlin
Park area and the larvae (cat-
erpillars) completely defoli-
ated the snowbrush.
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We wanted to capture
photos of the butterflies
emerging from the chrysa-
lis (not cocoon; that’s for
moths), so I cut several
snow-brush branches cov-
ered with larval cases and
brought them home.
Patiently we waited for
the butterfly to emerge,
watching the chrysalis wig-
gle from time to time, but
as the butterflies emerged,
something astounding hap-
pened. In more than 50
percent of the chrysalides,
instead of a butterfly emerg-
ing from the silken case, out
popped tiny flies.
They were tachinids that
had grown from eggs laid
in the caterpillar by adult
tachinids; the eggs hatched
and kept growing as their
host metamorphosed from
caterpillar to adult insect,
the maggot devouring the
advancing butterfly, then
the fly emerging as an
adult.
I’m still searching to see
who gets to be the lucky host
of that beautiful giant in the
photo above (which I’ve
named the Chewucan tachi-
nid fly).
My entomological pal
in Colorado, Eric Eaton,
reminded me that reproduc-
tive strategies vary greatly,
and sometimes can be con-
fused with the wasps, that
can be host-specific.
Typically, tachinid larvae
are internal parasites of cat-
erpillars of butterflies and
moths, but some species also
attack larvae and adult bee-
tles, while others use grass-
hoppers, centipedes, bees,
wasps and sawflies.
Many tachinids are
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PHOTO BY JIM ANDERSON
A beautiful tachinid fly — which aren’t usually that colorful — on my
wife Sue’s sweater.
important natural enemies of
major insect pests, and some
species actually are used
in biological pest control.
Conversely, certain tachi-
nid flies that prey on useful
insects are considered as
pests.
Another reproductive
strategy is when a female
leaves her eggs within the
host’s environment. The
female might lay her eggs
on leaves, where the host is
likely to ingest them. Some
tachinids that are parasit-
oids of stem-boring cater-
pillars deposit eggs outside
the host’s burrow, letting
the first instar larvae do the
work of finding the host for
themselves.
So, there you are: That
tiny, ugly fly, or that beauty
in the start of this piece
(depending on your taste in
Mother Nature’s magnificent
word of creatures) can blow
you away with all they they
do for and to you.
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