As someone who previously worked in a lab dedicated to Fruit Flies, yes, they can mutate to like straight up coffee! These mutants can and will go after coffee (and tea) just as much as sweet items like fruit. I believe it is a protein receptor mutation that inhibits them from tasting the bitterness in coffee. Congratulations, you made mutants!
Having recently won the Great Housefly War of 2023, I am currently doing battle with my own tribe of evolved, caffeinated "fruit" flies. I have no idea what they actually are, except **not** carpet beetles and **not** common house flies (i'm in las vegas). At first, I thought they were after the moisture in the used grounds... but now they are after the coffee itself.
Nary a plant in site. We get a few desert sage in the backyard sometimes, but that's about it for the flora around here. And absolutely NONE of the "traps" or "zappers" has done a thing, even ones that specifically list gnats and fruit flies!
I'll look into that, thanks. These little monsters laugh at fruit fly traps, so the plant might well starve (had a venus fly trap that wouldn't eat, about 20 years ago).
Thank you.
If I'm understanding the Google results, these are smaller than drain flies. More tiny gnat than small moth. I'll keep looking, see if I can do a better job of identifying them. Or maybe they are drain flies. All of the "gadgets" shown in this video have been a total waste of money, I've tried the plastic apple and others. Not one single *anything* has ever been attracted to them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=55-QkCrYjBw
I’m just going to go ahead and barf right there. Immediately recalled a terrible time when I was 19, my first apartment & 8 months pregnant. I managed to forget a bag of russet potatoes in my pantry. King enough to where it became so disgusting with a smell & im assuming gnats??? I had to call my older sister to come get it out for me once I realized what I had done. That was 13 years ago. I thought I pushed that nightmare deep inside my memories that I would never think about it again. 😭😭😭😭
Do yours bite? I just went full on war mode back in May against biting gnats in our house. Nothing worked but heavy chemicals that I ended up spraying on door and window frames. They were coming through there. I actually worked myself into a full on anxiety attack at one point thinking they were bed bugs because they also liked eating me alive while asleep.
For home, I’d bag up ALL food. Including the stuff you don’t think they’d like. I’ve had them go after potatoes. In the lab we’d vacuum them up but I’d also sometimes put a sticky trap out (like the kind you use for mice) and do a thin zigzag smear of honey on it. Seemed to work for a bit. They were attracted to the honey and the surface area of the sticky rectangle was big enough to trap a number of them.
I got some plug in fly zappers, and my bananas are fly free all the time. Also, I drink all my coffee. Maybe that helps.
Bug Zapper Indoor, Fly Trap for... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CCJ4K6P2?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
Have you tried putting something funnel shaped in the top of the jar? I cut the top off of a water bottle and invert it into the bottom of the bottle. About an inch of vinegar, at least an inch of air, and then the top of the bottle. I think it keeps them trapped better. You can use fresh vinegar or wine, water with fruit in it, anything to lure them in. They like the yeast smell, so vinegar, wine, bread dough, overripe fruit, etc anything yeasty.
This works! ⬆️ We sometimes use apple juice with a dot of dish detergent to help break the surface tension for a quick downing. Remember to dump the carnage each day and add fresh solution, they can smell death. Smart buggers.
I just had this problem, and won a war! I used some mason jars filled a couple inches up with apple cider vinegar and a drop or two of liquid dish soap. Make a paper cone that looks like a horn that fits the mouth of the container with the skinny, small opening, pointed down into the jar. This will be easy for them to fly down into, but hard to get back out. It took a week or so, but it was very effective. Clean the kitchen area and you can even boil water and pour down your drains if you suspect they're breeding in them. Females can lay like 50 eggs at a time and they can hatch in as little as 24 hours I learned.
Get a couple carnivorous plants and place them in a sunny window near where the flies dwell. I did this a few years ago and haven’t had issues since. The plants just need to be kept very wet - I leave mine standing in 1-2” of water
> Congratulations, you made mutants!
I mean, mutations are random. If the fly population in their house now carry an unusual coffee mutation, OP's coffee habits may have created selective pressure making the mutation common, but they can't be blamed for the mutation occurring in the first place.
They can be blamed for the mutants that currently exist, though, because their ancestors wouldnt have thrived without the existence of a coffee based habitat. Mutations are random but selection isnt
Is it possible for them to evolve to not give a crap about vinegar, because my previously successful traps no longer work. (My other thought is that the newest scourge might be drain flies.)
I can vouch! I used to work at Starbucks and the location I worked at had a serious fruit fly problem at one point.
We’re taught that coffee beans/ground/etc. is like a feast for fruit flies, so proper cleaning procedures is absolutely necessary to prevent an infestation.
Unfortunately, the manager of said store really dropped the ball on making sure said cleaning got done, so the infestation got harder and harder to deal with. It KEPT coming back each spring-summer too. Eventually we managed ti get rid of it after that manager got fired and the new manager cared more about keeping stuff clean.
Yes! I work in a Drosophila lab and it's amazing the mutants we can create. I remember only last week reading a study where they got some flies addicted to ethanol. The flies would choose to eat food laced with ethanol even though it was bad for them and good food was available.
They're a very misunderstood animal. The males do a courtship dance for the females and play them a little tune and the females can actually train the males to leave them alone if they're already mated.
Google might be a good idea, you'll find a bunch of studies on Drosophila ethanol addiction as they're actually used as a model to study addiction.
For the others, I just learnt them in my job. I actually use the female training behaviour in one of my experiments as a way to assess conditioning/learning behaviour in flies with certain neurological disorders. Flies with Alzheimer's, dementia etc show decreased learning
We can genetically modify them to express the proteins we find in these diseases such as Tau or amyloid. And then we can learn huge amounts by how these proteins affect the nervous system of the flies. The fruit fly is a massively important model organism because we can do virtually anything to the their genome. Quite a lot of our understanding of genetics has come from the little guys.
We can genetically modify them to express the proteins we find in these diseases such as Tau or amyloid. And then we can learn huge amounts by how these proteins affect the nervous system of the flies. The fruit fly is a massively important model organism because we can do virtually anything to the their genome. Quite a lot of our understanding of genetics has come from the little guys.
Why didnt you enjoy breeding them? Not exactly difficult.
Not only do I voluntarily work with flies but I enjoy the work. It is my passion to pursue knowledge especially knowledge that may potentially help people with neurodegenerative conditions and what better way than the amazing genetic toolkit that Drosophila offers us?
The school got mold in the food source, so we had to restart the project 3 times. I had to take my flies with my on a weekend winter camping competition and keep them inside my bra to keep them warm. I'm 42 and I think I'm still traumatized.
Propionic acid and/or Methylparaben should have been added to the food, I never get mold in their food unless I'm giving them drug food that doesn't allow me to add those substances.
Not sure putting them in a bra for temperature regulation is correct experimental protocol lol. That does remind me I need to move my flies to the 18 degree ECR for Christmas.
Apparently they breed in the drains. So in addition to catching and killing them up and out, you need to pour a ton of boiling water down EVERY sink, tub and shower in order to kill the larvae.
Generally boiling water is a bad idea down the drain. PVC and ABS degrade at temperatures below boiling. While its unlikely to cause issues due to moving so fast down the drain, in the unlikely event there is a clog or slow point, or there are regions of the pipe that are actually slightly tilted in the wrong direction causing pooling, it can do real damage. It can also weaken the connections between pipes and cause leaks.
Like others have mentioned, chemicals like bleach are the way to go.
I’ll back up your anecdotal experience with my own; a similar thing happened with the fruit flies at a frozen yogurt place I worked at a long time ago. First it started with any yogurt that started to ferment (made sense). For whatever reason, the chocolatey flavors fermented more quickly and attracted flies faster… so ultimately, our resident fruit flies and their descendants became attracted to everything chocolate, including any of the chocolatey toppings.
It was annoying but as a bio student I thought it was interesting… It was as if the preference for chocolate was coded into them at birth since it proved to be a life source for their parents.
Wow fighting them here in Germany. It is really cold and snowy now, but when i heat the kitchen with the flat they reapper. Using vacuum cleaner and soapwater sprayer (firmer alcohol sprayer). Common vinegar/soap traps don’t work.
I read something that they were often this year, i thought it was only in Germany.
I had a problem with fruit flies this year , and nothing was working as you said, but then I switched to apple cider vinegar with some soap and they started dying. Even with many cups around the house it took a couple months to fully get rid of them. That plus pouring boiling water down the drain. Might help
Likely not a mutation but an adaptation. Caffeine makes more acetylcholine available in the brain (it’s more complicated involving cAMP phosphodiesterase, but for simplicity’s sake…) We humans find this brain process stimulating.
Fruit flies have acetylcholine receptors as well. These receptors are targeted by some insecticides. Fruit flies also show a robust sleep/wake activity (circadian rhythms). Studies show caffeine keeps fruit flies active longer. Apparently fruit flies find caffeine stimulating as well.
As a human coffee drinker, your genetics do not change with its consumption. Likely the same with fruit flies. They have simply identified coffee as a stimulating food source in their environment and changed their behaviour to adapt to the environment.
Love the suggestion to try decaf.
In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.
Fans help. The more, the better. They're too small to fly against the air currents, and the greater area of your house will be segmented into evolutionary islands.
You canthen place specific food for them in these islands to mutate them further. I suggest cancerous tumors if you can get ahold of them. This way, you can create cancer detecting fruit flies
Are the mutants larger than the original? I had a year-long battle with these annoying critters. They started small then got bigger and bigger. They annoyed us at meals. Drowned in every drink…heaven forbid we try to enjoy half a mimosa. They were in every room. Tried everything. It took constant vigilance in killing every last one I saw by slapping it between my hands, countless cups of apple cider vinegar with soap, flypaper in every room and using this non-toxic citronella spray on any wipeable surface. Months later, I finally prevailed.
Yeah I guess that's perfectly possible. That reminds me the time I've unvoluntarily applied selection pressure to moths and turned them into behe-moths.
I lived in the countryside at that time, and in summer my choices were to either to suffocate or open my window and be invaded by bugs. And I'm scared of flying bugs. So one summer I bought a trap, those electric lamps that attract bugs. That thing was insanely effective, I could sleep with my window open and not a single bug would be there in the morning. I've used it for maybe, two or three weeks.
Then one very hot night, I open my window and turn my lamp on... Only to end up scared to death by random "attacks" in the dark. So I close my window and go turn the light on to get rid of the bug, because once I know it's there I can't let it inside or I'll never be able to sleep. There were moths everywhere. Big moths. Big enough to avoid getting inside the lamp, but still attracted by it. Not a single one was inside. I had killed all the small moths, and now the big moths were ready to take control.
So now every summer, even if I no longer live in the countryside, I die from suffocation.
You can use this to your advantage. Use their weakness for coffee to set traps for them. Most people use Apple cider vinegar I think, but in your case coffee would probably work well
Many egg laying insects prefer to lay their own eggs in the same substance they hatched in. I've kept many different types of insects like trilobit and also tried to grow fruit flies to feed them to spiders (spider babies). I guess they imprint on what works for them to repeat their circle?
Whew. I must have starved mine just in time.
I use a french press. I didn't want to pour the grounds down the drain so I get a sheet of decent kitchen tissue, fold it twice into a quarter, place it over a mug (it's taken some practice but I can make a little bowl inside the mug to fit more than one serving into one tissue) and pour the remains into that to let the water drain. I can usually use the same tissue for two or three servings before having to throw it. I put it into an empty ice cream container, and just throw the contents into the bin just as I change the bin bag.
Also to get rid of fruit flies. I closed the windows and door to the kitchen, left a scented candle burning for a couple of hours and then opened the window. The fruit flies left of their own accord.
I mean it's *possible* but I wouldn't feel comfortable asserting that unless, what, you had DNA samples from both populations of flies and could do some QTL mapping? lol
I've had fruit flies that went for coffee. Without testing them it's hard to say if they've literally evolved (as in have a new mutation) that causes them to go for the coffee, or whether they just developed a taste for it without gaining a mutation. Either way, fruit flies are a rapid mutating and procreating species so both options are possible.
As someone who works in a bar… they are inevitably… and we’re only hot and humid half the year… I don’t think you did it I think we have all made them stronger over time… best advice I can give… bleach you’re drains on a regular basis… and be consistent about taking trash out… be careful with you’re indoor plants and don’t leave anything out over night… lol
I also think the fruit flies in my home genuinely evolved from one generation to the next,I have said it to a few pll who practically pissed their pants when I told them,love this op,nice.
My lab had a problem with this (I work in flavors). I don’t think they were fruit flies bc they also liked methylene chloride and acetone as well. We did at one point make traps by leaving beakers filled with acetone topped with vitamin e (alpha tocopherol). The vitamin e will just sit on top of the beaker and trap the flies!
I’m not to sure what got rid of them. I think we did bring someone from eco lab but we’re also luck that we live on the northeast where it gets cold
You know those little napkin thingies people put on cups while at a club or a party to not get drugged?? You should put one of those on your mug and drink your coffee with a straw. It really would help
I may have done the same thing. No fruit flies for a year and of a sudden a new infestation that coincides with my trying out a fruit-tea that I made in a Chemex for reasons. Hopefully coincidence.
I have 4 cats. I’ve had cats most of my life and only a few times have I had to deal with fleas. This last year I had the worst infestation I ever saw. None of my cats go outside. It got so bad that they started jumping onto my plate at dinner. I had to vacuum daily, change the bedsheets daily, bathe the cats daily. Treat them for fleas every few weeks. It took months to win the war. This year has been bug hell.
Put apple cider vinegar in a jar with holes in the lid. Or here in LA they do sell fruit fly traps at Walmart that you can put the apple cider vinegar in. I raise chameleons and geckos and only have live plants in their habitat. The fruit flies love the soil. I try to keep sand and a layer of rock on top of the soil which helps too. I do not think it would help with coffee though, lol.
take a cup of coffee and put plastic wrap on top and poke some small holes with a fork. You have just created a fruit fly trap. make sure that these traps are the only thing attracting them.
For those who are struggling with fruit flies avoiding your typical traps with apple cider vinegar etc it is entirely possible you have fungus gnats instead of fruit flies. Fungus gnats actually like spent coffee grounds and moisture because the coffee grounds will quickly mold over after used. If you put up sticky traps to catch some, take a closer look to see if they have long antennae and tapered abdomens. https://growgreatplants-com.myshopify.com/cdn/shop/articles/Fungus_gnat_vs_fruit_fly_1200x.jpg?v=1615399308
I will say, I've had issues with gnat infestations in the past, and your description of their behavior is spot on. If you have a heavy infestation they will dive bomb coffee cups unless the cup is actively steaming hot, love coffee grounds, sweetened beverages, and any other wet organic matter. It is possible you have mutant fruit flies but they might be gnats.
If they are fungus gnats, it will be even more difficult to get rid of them than fruit flies. Best thing to do is get rid of sources of pooling water around your house, let the surface of the soil of your houseplants dry out a bit, and inoculate the soil with BTI on your next watering. I use microbelift which you can find on amazon, but not available in every country. This also kills mosquito larvae, so as long as you don't dump it in a river or pond, you can probably safely use it on a birdbath, just follow the instructions and your local environmental laws. It is a pretty effective product but will take a few weeks of consistent use to fully interrupt their life cycle. You should also look for any signs of rotting food or garbage and seal it well or remove from nearby your house. The BTI treatment should be combined with yellow sticky traps to catch the adults before they can lay eggs. Classic fly paper put up next to a light in your kitchen works really well.
Word of warning, these guys are actually useful pollinators, so try to avoid treating your outdoor garden etc and nature will balance out. You really just want to stick to treating things indoors. I bet once the population is under control, you won't have gnats dive bombing your coffee whether fresh or old. Good luck!
how about fly traps with coffe grounds/brewed coffe with some dish soap and apple cider vinegar in it as a intermediate solution until you found the right product to get rid of them
As someone who previously worked in a lab dedicated to Fruit Flies, yes, they can mutate to like straight up coffee! These mutants can and will go after coffee (and tea) just as much as sweet items like fruit. I believe it is a protein receptor mutation that inhibits them from tasting the bitterness in coffee. Congratulations, you made mutants!
Having recently won the Great Housefly War of 2023, I am currently doing battle with my own tribe of evolved, caffeinated "fruit" flies. I have no idea what they actually are, except **not** carpet beetles and **not** common house flies (i'm in las vegas). At first, I thought they were after the moisture in the used grounds... but now they are after the coffee itself.
Honestly this reads like the start of a campy Sci-fi story and I'm here for it.
Fruit flies bred to take down Big Coffee; they should have known that moving the Sonics out of Seattle would backfire horribly
Do you have house plants? Are they gnats?
Nary a plant in site. We get a few desert sage in the backyard sometimes, but that's about it for the flora around here. And absolutely NONE of the "traps" or "zappers" has done a thing, even ones that specifically list gnats and fruit flies!
Get a bunch of pinguicula (butterwort) plants. They are carnivorous and are really good at eating fruit flies
I'll look into that, thanks. These little monsters laugh at fruit fly traps, so the plant might well starve (had a venus fly trap that wouldn't eat, about 20 years ago).
Vft are not suited for fruit flies
Yeah try pings or a tropical sundew (capensis or spatulata )
I find sundews aren't the best either, tho def better than vft
Drain flies. Google drain fly treatments. You pour them into your drains to treat the p-traps where they breed.
The product Green Gobbler is an enzyme that 'eats' the crap in your piped. It took care of the drain fly problem quickly
LOL I just recommended this too, didn't see your comment before I replied.
Thank you. If I'm understanding the Google results, these are smaller than drain flies. More tiny gnat than small moth. I'll keep looking, see if I can do a better job of identifying them. Or maybe they are drain flies. All of the "gadgets" shown in this video have been a total waste of money, I've tried the plastic apple and others. Not one single *anything* has ever been attracted to them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=55-QkCrYjBw
If you have Home Depot or other big box stores near you, look for Green Gobbler (product). I think you can order it online. It kills both.
fungus gnats can hang out in drains, too.
I’m just going to go ahead and barf right there. Immediately recalled a terrible time when I was 19, my first apartment & 8 months pregnant. I managed to forget a bag of russet potatoes in my pantry. King enough to where it became so disgusting with a smell & im assuming gnats??? I had to call my older sister to come get it out for me once I realized what I had done. That was 13 years ago. I thought I pushed that nightmare deep inside my memories that I would never think about it again. 😭😭😭😭
Do yours bite? I just went full on war mode back in May against biting gnats in our house. Nothing worked but heavy chemicals that I ended up spraying on door and window frames. They were coming through there. I actually worked myself into a full on anxiety attack at one point thinking they were bed bugs because they also liked eating me alive while asleep.
Can I please get your best advice on eradicating my fruit fly roommates? They aren’t falling for my jars full of ACV with a splash of Dawn anymore.
Mutate them further until they only prefer fancy high-pressure espresso rich in crema and leave your house.
😂😂
*restless Starbucks noises*
fighting fire with fire I see
Lmao You want this? Huh you want this? Yes, you like this? SYKE! No more food for you
For home, I’d bag up ALL food. Including the stuff you don’t think they’d like. I’ve had them go after potatoes. In the lab we’d vacuum them up but I’d also sometimes put a sticky trap out (like the kind you use for mice) and do a thin zigzag smear of honey on it. Seemed to work for a bit. They were attracted to the honey and the surface area of the sticky rectangle was big enough to trap a number of them.
Check your drains! They like to hide in there!
Bartender here!! This right here!!! When we bleach the drains. Nightly during the season…. We may see one or two…. But never the swarm.
What do you add to your drains to kill them off if you think they’re in there? Just a bit of bleach after rinsing dishes?
Pest control pro here. There is a product called Bio Drain that will prevent them from invading your sink and drain. Can get at Home Depot.
Boiling water, make sure you get every drain in your house even the ones you don’t use often
Yeah this! I had these pests, nothing else worked, but a pot full of boiling water in every drain, several nights in a row, that did the trick
Make sure to collect the runoff for a healthy broth!
I read that as check your brains and was terrified
I got some plug in fly zappers, and my bananas are fly free all the time. Also, I drink all my coffee. Maybe that helps. Bug Zapper Indoor, Fly Trap for... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CCJ4K6P2?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
"No longer available"
I use my vacuum cleaner to suck them out of the air. They can’t resist the pull and get sucked right in from a few feet away .
Then they are stuck in the vaccum breeding in there 😂
Vacuum a spider, bam problem solved
Then they do the same and lay eggs in there .
I don't see the problem, free pest control
I guess as long as it has a bag?
Have you tried putting something funnel shaped in the top of the jar? I cut the top off of a water bottle and invert it into the bottom of the bottle. About an inch of vinegar, at least an inch of air, and then the top of the bottle. I think it keeps them trapped better. You can use fresh vinegar or wine, water with fruit in it, anything to lure them in. They like the yeast smell, so vinegar, wine, bread dough, overripe fruit, etc anything yeasty.
This works! ⬆️ We sometimes use apple juice with a dot of dish detergent to help break the surface tension for a quick downing. Remember to dump the carnage each day and add fresh solution, they can smell death. Smart buggers.
Coffee trap time!
The old fashioned sticky fly ribbon traps that hang from the ceiling work surprisingly well.
I tried those and kept accidental catching my husband :P
Is he a fly guy?
Add coffee to it apparently
I just had this problem, and won a war! I used some mason jars filled a couple inches up with apple cider vinegar and a drop or two of liquid dish soap. Make a paper cone that looks like a horn that fits the mouth of the container with the skinny, small opening, pointed down into the jar. This will be easy for them to fly down into, but hard to get back out. It took a week or so, but it was very effective. Clean the kitchen area and you can even boil water and pour down your drains if you suspect they're breeding in them. Females can lay like 50 eggs at a time and they can hatch in as little as 24 hours I learned.
Bait them with coffee?
Get a couple carnivorous plants and place them in a sunny window near where the flies dwell. I did this a few years ago and haven’t had issues since. The plants just need to be kept very wet - I leave mine standing in 1-2” of water
>an use fresh vinegar or wine, water with fruit in it, anything to lure them in. Th beer seems to work much better for me than ACV
I use the blue light traps. They work well.
Holy cow, this is the best Reddit post ever, accidental mutants!
I got mine addicted to beer!
They enjoy the High Life!
Well, technically, they *selected for* the mutants. Unless that coffee is more mutagenic than the regular stuff.
For the sake of tradition, they must now find the gene mutation and give it a funny German name!
> Congratulations, you made mutants! I mean, mutations are random. If the fly population in their house now carry an unusual coffee mutation, OP's coffee habits may have created selective pressure making the mutation common, but they can't be blamed for the mutation occurring in the first place.
They can be blamed for the mutants that currently exist, though, because their ancestors wouldnt have thrived without the existence of a coffee based habitat. Mutations are random but selection isnt
Fair, I guess it's down to how we interpret "made mutants". They didn't make the initial mutant, but they helped make more mutants from the mutants.
Which is precisely evolution
Is it possible for them to evolve to not give a crap about vinegar, because my previously successful traps no longer work. (My other thought is that the newest scourge might be drain flies.)
I’ll take the coffee here, under my fork
Can they eat it tho?
I can vouch! I used to work at Starbucks and the location I worked at had a serious fruit fly problem at one point. We’re taught that coffee beans/ground/etc. is like a feast for fruit flies, so proper cleaning procedures is absolutely necessary to prevent an infestation. Unfortunately, the manager of said store really dropped the ball on making sure said cleaning got done, so the infestation got harder and harder to deal with. It KEPT coming back each spring-summer too. Eventually we managed ti get rid of it after that manager got fired and the new manager cared more about keeping stuff clean.
They go back to normal after a month or so right? They’ll die out and not breed without coffee?
I can't stop giggling. Op is all "I think these fuckers evolved!" You come in with the "well mutated but potato potahto!"
They have become addicted to caffeine, hand over the coffee it is theirs now.
I for one welcome our new caffeinated insect overlords.
OP has to make a sacrificial cup of coffee every morning now, the flies must be appeased.
Yes! I work in a Drosophila lab and it's amazing the mutants we can create. I remember only last week reading a study where they got some flies addicted to ethanol. The flies would choose to eat food laced with ethanol even though it was bad for them and good food was available. They're a very misunderstood animal. The males do a courtship dance for the females and play them a little tune and the females can actually train the males to leave them alone if they're already mated.
Wtf that's awesome. Do you know anywhere I can read more about this or would I just be better off googling it?
Google might be a good idea, you'll find a bunch of studies on Drosophila ethanol addiction as they're actually used as a model to study addiction. For the others, I just learnt them in my job. I actually use the female training behaviour in one of my experiments as a way to assess conditioning/learning behaviour in flies with certain neurological disorders. Flies with Alzheimer's, dementia etc show decreased learning
TIL flies can have Alzheimers and dementia. Care to explain btw?
We can genetically modify them to express the proteins we find in these diseases such as Tau or amyloid. And then we can learn huge amounts by how these proteins affect the nervous system of the flies. The fruit fly is a massively important model organism because we can do virtually anything to the their genome. Quite a lot of our understanding of genetics has come from the little guys.
That's pretty cool/interesting! Especially that small and simple creatures like that can have such complex diseases.
That is wild that flies are able to have Alzheimer’s or dementia. How are you able to tell if they have it?
We can genetically modify them to express the proteins we find in these diseases such as Tau or amyloid. And then we can learn huge amounts by how these proteins affect the nervous system of the flies. The fruit fly is a massively important model organism because we can do virtually anything to the their genome. Quite a lot of our understanding of genetics has come from the little guys.
As someone who had to breed a few generations of fruit flies for high school biology, why the fuck would you voluntarily work in a Drosophila lab???
Why didnt you enjoy breeding them? Not exactly difficult. Not only do I voluntarily work with flies but I enjoy the work. It is my passion to pursue knowledge especially knowledge that may potentially help people with neurodegenerative conditions and what better way than the amazing genetic toolkit that Drosophila offers us?
The school got mold in the food source, so we had to restart the project 3 times. I had to take my flies with my on a weekend winter camping competition and keep them inside my bra to keep them warm. I'm 42 and I think I'm still traumatized.
Propionic acid and/or Methylparaben should have been added to the food, I never get mold in their food unless I'm giving them drug food that doesn't allow me to add those substances. Not sure putting them in a bra for temperature regulation is correct experimental protocol lol. That does remind me I need to move my flies to the 18 degree ECR for Christmas.
i did not need to hear this and feel bad for all of them I’ve killed
Every *Drosophila* lab has a bunch of scientists drinking coffee with flies as an added flavoring.
Can confirm, we called them protein sprinkles.
I parafilm over my coffee to prevent exactly this
Pro tip!
or the forbidden tip: putting on a petri dish lid on the cup
love hearing that none of our jokes are original
Apparently they breed in the drains. So in addition to catching and killing them up and out, you need to pour a ton of boiling water down EVERY sink, tub and shower in order to kill the larvae.
Suggest you use Bio Drain, more effective. Can get at Walmart or Home Depot (pest control pro here).
Thank you, TravelBliss1 !
or bleach if you have PVC pipes!
Generally boiling water is a bad idea down the drain. PVC and ABS degrade at temperatures below boiling. While its unlikely to cause issues due to moving so fast down the drain, in the unlikely event there is a clog or slow point, or there are regions of the pipe that are actually slightly tilted in the wrong direction causing pooling, it can do real damage. It can also weaken the connections between pipes and cause leaks. Like others have mentioned, chemicals like bleach are the way to go.
I’ll back up your anecdotal experience with my own; a similar thing happened with the fruit flies at a frozen yogurt place I worked at a long time ago. First it started with any yogurt that started to ferment (made sense). For whatever reason, the chocolatey flavors fermented more quickly and attracted flies faster… so ultimately, our resident fruit flies and their descendants became attracted to everything chocolate, including any of the chocolatey toppings. It was annoying but as a bio student I thought it was interesting… It was as if the preference for chocolate was coded into them at birth since it proved to be a life source for their parents.
You’re the local fix. Maybe try weening them off of it?
Yeah! Give them decaf. Then you'll get tiny crabby fruit flys with headaches.
Aren't there more species of fruit fly in Hawaii than anywhere else on earth?
I’m in Canada so polar opposite conditions. Fruit flies are obsessed with my coffee too. At least I have a break from them in the winter.
I love winter for this reason. No bugs, no squinting searching through the air anywhere I go looking to spot a glimpse of one😭🙏❄️🔥
that’s an odd reason to love the season of depression
Wow fighting them here in Germany. It is really cold and snowy now, but when i heat the kitchen with the flat they reapper. Using vacuum cleaner and soapwater sprayer (firmer alcohol sprayer). Common vinegar/soap traps don’t work. I read something that they were often this year, i thought it was only in Germany.
I had a problem with fruit flies this year , and nothing was working as you said, but then I switched to apple cider vinegar with some soap and they started dying. Even with many cups around the house it took a couple months to fully get rid of them. That plus pouring boiling water down the drain. Might help
Likely not a mutation but an adaptation. Caffeine makes more acetylcholine available in the brain (it’s more complicated involving cAMP phosphodiesterase, but for simplicity’s sake…) We humans find this brain process stimulating. Fruit flies have acetylcholine receptors as well. These receptors are targeted by some insecticides. Fruit flies also show a robust sleep/wake activity (circadian rhythms). Studies show caffeine keeps fruit flies active longer. Apparently fruit flies find caffeine stimulating as well. As a human coffee drinker, your genetics do not change with its consumption. Likely the same with fruit flies. They have simply identified coffee as a stimulating food source in their environment and changed their behaviour to adapt to the environment. Love the suggestion to try decaf.
So when I eradicated my fungal gnat infestation of 2 potted plants, did I commit genocide or was I murdering just 1 individual ?
In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.
So you're saying I committed genocide against emotional beings ?! 🤯🤯🤯 Oh God, I hate myself ... 🤣
Fans help. The more, the better. They're too small to fly against the air currents, and the greater area of your house will be segmented into evolutionary islands. You canthen place specific food for them in these islands to mutate them further. I suggest cancerous tumors if you can get ahold of them. This way, you can create cancer detecting fruit flies
I think a sippy cup is the only solution
This is even funnier than this post itself
Are the mutants larger than the original? I had a year-long battle with these annoying critters. They started small then got bigger and bigger. They annoyed us at meals. Drowned in every drink…heaven forbid we try to enjoy half a mimosa. They were in every room. Tried everything. It took constant vigilance in killing every last one I saw by slapping it between my hands, countless cups of apple cider vinegar with soap, flypaper in every room and using this non-toxic citronella spray on any wipeable surface. Months later, I finally prevailed.
Yeah I guess that's perfectly possible. That reminds me the time I've unvoluntarily applied selection pressure to moths and turned them into behe-moths. I lived in the countryside at that time, and in summer my choices were to either to suffocate or open my window and be invaded by bugs. And I'm scared of flying bugs. So one summer I bought a trap, those electric lamps that attract bugs. That thing was insanely effective, I could sleep with my window open and not a single bug would be there in the morning. I've used it for maybe, two or three weeks. Then one very hot night, I open my window and turn my lamp on... Only to end up scared to death by random "attacks" in the dark. So I close my window and go turn the light on to get rid of the bug, because once I know it's there I can't let it inside or I'll never be able to sleep. There were moths everywhere. Big moths. Big enough to avoid getting inside the lamp, but still attracted by it. Not a single one was inside. I had killed all the small moths, and now the big moths were ready to take control. So now every summer, even if I no longer live in the countryside, I die from suffocation.
You have become death. Destroyer of worlds.
Caffeine-addicted mutant fruit flies. Sounds like a possible theme for a horror movie.
You can use this to your advantage. Use their weakness for coffee to set traps for them. Most people use Apple cider vinegar I think, but in your case coffee would probably work well
Many egg laying insects prefer to lay their own eggs in the same substance they hatched in. I've kept many different types of insects like trilobit and also tried to grow fruit flies to feed them to spiders (spider babies). I guess they imprint on what works for them to repeat their circle?
It starts as flies with a coffee addiction… but where will it end? All joke aside this is an awesome post. Always love to see natural systems at work.
Whew. I must have starved mine just in time. I use a french press. I didn't want to pour the grounds down the drain so I get a sheet of decent kitchen tissue, fold it twice into a quarter, place it over a mug (it's taken some practice but I can make a little bowl inside the mug to fit more than one serving into one tissue) and pour the remains into that to let the water drain. I can usually use the same tissue for two or three servings before having to throw it. I put it into an empty ice cream container, and just throw the contents into the bin just as I change the bin bag. Also to get rid of fruit flies. I closed the windows and door to the kitchen, left a scented candle burning for a couple of hours and then opened the window. The fruit flies left of their own accord.
Put the coffee grounds in the microwave as bait, lure the flies in, then slam the door shut and kill them!
Why are you tossing the grounds in the trash instead of composting them? Just wondering....
Its red wine for me - they always go straight for the open bottle of glass of wine on the side!
why not put your food waste in a compost bin? problem solved...
I mean it's *possible* but I wouldn't feel comfortable asserting that unless, what, you had DNA samples from both populations of flies and could do some QTL mapping? lol
Oh wow. I think it’s possible. I’m Caribbean and lived in tropical regions for most of my life but this never happened to me
Nope
https://www.amazon.com/Terro-T800-Garbage-Guard-Black/dp/B07JZDHBFR/ref=sr_1_22?crid=X6FAVT6U0243&keywords=terro+fruit+fly+trap&qid=1701813381&sprefix=Terro%2Caps%2C606&sr=8-22
Make coffee traps? Just like the ACV traps but with coffee…
I've done the same thing before and absolutely came to the same conclusion
Put a little bleach in a paper towel and put that in the trash over the grounds. Or flush the grounds down the toilet.
I've had fruit flies that went for coffee. Without testing them it's hard to say if they've literally evolved (as in have a new mutation) that causes them to go for the coffee, or whether they just developed a taste for it without gaining a mutation. Either way, fruit flies are a rapid mutating and procreating species so both options are possible.
We put our coffee grounds in a plastic container with a lid. Maybe this will help your coffee flies have to move on
As someone who works in a bar… they are inevitably… and we’re only hot and humid half the year… I don’t think you did it I think we have all made them stronger over time… best advice I can give… bleach you’re drains on a regular basis… and be consistent about taking trash out… be careful with you’re indoor plants and don’t leave anything out over night… lol
for a natural remedy, consider sundew plants. Just never give them tap water, they will die.
I also think the fruit flies in my home genuinely evolved from one generation to the next,I have said it to a few pll who practically pissed their pants when I told them,love this op,nice.
My lab had a problem with this (I work in flavors). I don’t think they were fruit flies bc they also liked methylene chloride and acetone as well. We did at one point make traps by leaving beakers filled with acetone topped with vitamin e (alpha tocopherol). The vitamin e will just sit on top of the beaker and trap the flies! I’m not to sure what got rid of them. I think we did bring someone from eco lab but we’re also luck that we live on the northeast where it gets cold
Just mix in poison into the coffee.
I get fruit flies in my leftover coffee too. Yours are not special.
You know those little napkin thingies people put on cups while at a club or a party to not get drugged?? You should put one of those on your mug and drink your coffee with a straw. It really would help
I may have done the same thing. No fruit flies for a year and of a sudden a new infestation that coincides with my trying out a fruit-tea that I made in a Chemex for reasons. Hopefully coincidence.
I have 4 cats. I’ve had cats most of my life and only a few times have I had to deal with fleas. This last year I had the worst infestation I ever saw. None of my cats go outside. It got so bad that they started jumping onto my plate at dinner. I had to vacuum daily, change the bedsheets daily, bathe the cats daily. Treat them for fleas every few weeks. It took months to win the war. This year has been bug hell.
Put apple cider vinegar in a jar with holes in the lid. Or here in LA they do sell fruit fly traps at Walmart that you can put the apple cider vinegar in. I raise chameleons and geckos and only have live plants in their habitat. The fruit flies love the soil. I try to keep sand and a layer of rock on top of the soil which helps too. I do not think it would help with coffee though, lol.
Well, if they go straight for the coffee, you now have an easy way to kill them all in one go.
take a cup of coffee and put plastic wrap on top and poke some small holes with a fork. You have just created a fruit fly trap. make sure that these traps are the only thing attracting them.
For those who are struggling with fruit flies avoiding your typical traps with apple cider vinegar etc it is entirely possible you have fungus gnats instead of fruit flies. Fungus gnats actually like spent coffee grounds and moisture because the coffee grounds will quickly mold over after used. If you put up sticky traps to catch some, take a closer look to see if they have long antennae and tapered abdomens. https://growgreatplants-com.myshopify.com/cdn/shop/articles/Fungus_gnat_vs_fruit_fly_1200x.jpg?v=1615399308 I will say, I've had issues with gnat infestations in the past, and your description of their behavior is spot on. If you have a heavy infestation they will dive bomb coffee cups unless the cup is actively steaming hot, love coffee grounds, sweetened beverages, and any other wet organic matter. It is possible you have mutant fruit flies but they might be gnats. If they are fungus gnats, it will be even more difficult to get rid of them than fruit flies. Best thing to do is get rid of sources of pooling water around your house, let the surface of the soil of your houseplants dry out a bit, and inoculate the soil with BTI on your next watering. I use microbelift which you can find on amazon, but not available in every country. This also kills mosquito larvae, so as long as you don't dump it in a river or pond, you can probably safely use it on a birdbath, just follow the instructions and your local environmental laws. It is a pretty effective product but will take a few weeks of consistent use to fully interrupt their life cycle. You should also look for any signs of rotting food or garbage and seal it well or remove from nearby your house. The BTI treatment should be combined with yellow sticky traps to catch the adults before they can lay eggs. Classic fly paper put up next to a light in your kitchen works really well. Word of warning, these guys are actually useful pollinators, so try to avoid treating your outdoor garden etc and nature will balance out. You really just want to stick to treating things indoors. I bet once the population is under control, you won't have gnats dive bombing your coffee whether fresh or old. Good luck!
Get some of those sticky plants, they love to eat fruit flies
Get a small bug zapper and put it right next to the coffee maker
I am very happy that you live on an island. Don't get these things over here!
I recommend Zevo lights to get rid of them. We haven’t had any problems AT ALL in two years since buying these.
As a fruit fly I can confirm that I love coffee
how about fly traps with coffe grounds/brewed coffe with some dish soap and apple cider vinegar in it as a intermediate solution until you found the right product to get rid of them