![]() ![]() ![]() Now when this fly turns away from the camera, we see another interesting thing about them. This sort of thing has apparently happened several times, by the way, as there are several identical-looking species/races/populations of these flies that live on native snowberries, honeysuckle, blueberries, and other fruits. Although there is considerable reproductive isolation in the wild between these populations, they are still considered one species although I am not sure why. So now there are two populations of the flies, one that continues to live and breed on hawthorns (these are sometimes called hawthorn maggot flies), while the apple maggot flies prefer apple trees. However, when European settlers brought over apple trees, some of the flies started to prefer the new trees as their host plants. You see, their native host plant are hawthorn trees, which are related to apples. What happened to cause this in this species is the introduction of apple trees to North America. This form of speciation is where one species becomes two species while still living in the same area, rather than after they are separated to live in different areas. One interesting thing about them is that they are a classic example of sympatric speciation. So while the fly is slurping up sour apple juice, allow me to tell you about apple maggot flies.Īpple maggot fly by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr I found that I could photograph this one very easily by simply giving it slices of apple. Although rather pretty, they are considered a serous pest to apples. Here is an apple maggot fly that I found hanging around our apple trees last summer. The name is not appealing, but apple maggot flies ( Rhagoletis pomonella) are interesting for different reasons. ![]()
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