Fruit Fly Don't Bother Me!
When you've sucked all the peach you can off the pit and there's just a little pale watermelon
left on the rind, you've got the makings of a great introduction to the icky world of insects!
What you need:
- Leftover fruit pit or core
- Glass jar
- Large plastic funnel (from a hardware or paint supply store)
- Paper
- Cotton
What to do:
- Throw your leftover apple core, gunky peach pit or squished grapes into a jar with a big
plastic funnel on top. Set it outside for a few hours.
- When the fruit flies arrive (and they will!), take the funnel out, throw a piece of paper in
and use a big ball of cotton to loosely plug the top of the jar.
- Notice how many flies you caught. If some have black tips on their bodies (males), and some
don't (females), it won't be long until your fruit fly family starts to multiply! The females will
lay eggs and in a few days they will hatch into worm-like baby flies called larvae. When they're
about to mature into pupa (like teenage fruit flies) the larvaewill crawl onto the paper. Pupa
don't move around too much and within days they'll become adult fruit flies, and the whole process
will start again.
- When your jar gets too crowded, release your flies OUTSIDE so they can go about their business
again of finding some other fruit to flock to.
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