Drosophila Menagerie

Last night, Ian announced, "I had flies for pets."

I wished to know more.

It turned out that he maintained them in a make-shift "cage," made up of the space between a closed window and its closed screen. He believes that he successfully exploited a hole in the screen to lure them in, with sugar water and a somewhat dated portion of peach, and that once they crawled in to partake of the bait, they were stuck inside. One of them got hurt - I forget how - but Ian was concerned for its well-being.

I told Ian that scientists keep flies for research, and he was well aware of this fact. Moreover, it turned out that he already had an observation chart from the day's work. I think it should be shared:

Flies!

I have pet flies I catchered!

They look like

[drawings involving several gauze wings]

How they stand

[more drawings]

How They eat a peach I gave them

[drawings of two flies pursuing a peach roughly their size

my Hurt one look like this

[drawing of an apparently supine fly]

my Big one

[drawing of a fly considerably larger than the rest]

(June 28, 2011)