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Posted by Homer1 on May 10, 2003 at 00:19:32:
In Reply to: Lice in fly cultures posted by Slaytonp on May 09, 2003 at 19:19:30:
Patty,
Am I glad that I didn't have to complete a 25 page paper on THAT topic today. The one I had was bad enough . . . but it was my last one!
In all honesty, I remember seeing one of your earlier posts regarding this creature, and was quite intrigued. Unfortunately, I have no clue as to the identity of your mysterious creepy crawly. I've heard of mites infesting cultures before, but never the two-headed variety--and I've never heard of lice in Drosophila cultures. Perhaps I haven't been around long enough to have seen it all.
But, then again, new species are identified every day. I had an old mycology prof that used to say "It's trivially easy to go out and identify a new species--just figure out what girlfriend you want to name it after." I wonder, would your husband be charmed if you named a two headed louse after him?
May the frog be with you,
Homer
:A few months ago one of my fruit fly cultures became contaminated with some interesting lice. I don't know where they came from and they were no real problem, since I just fed them to the frogs along with the flies, but they were pretty weird. They appeared to be attached in pairs, butt to butt and would run first one direction, then the other head would take over and they'd go in the opposite direction. I looked closely at some of the pupae and they appear to develop that way and hatch out that way-- not a breeding thing. Pretty kinky? Something in my long ago college biology, strikes a bell, but my old texts give don't give any information on them. Anyone familiar with these? I now wish I'd deliberately contaminated another culture and kept some.
:Stop primping for the prom, Homer. Adjust your mortar board and get back here for one more finals question! And by the way, congratulations!! For anyone who doesn't know why I'm making a personal comment in a post about lice, Homer is graduating "summa" on Sunday and I'm jealous.
:Patty
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