Fruit flies as interesting indoor pets

by James K. Sayre

Fruit flies are small insects that are commonly found on ripe, over-ripe or rotting fruit. In terms of "pets," fruit flies fall into about the same category as fish. You can watch them, but you can't really have any sort of meaningful interaction with them. To establish a small indoor fruit fly colony, take some fruit trimmings or pieces of fruit that are too ripe to eat and put them into a small bowl or plastic tub on an out-of-the-way part of your kitchen counter, and in a couple of days, magically some fruit flies will appear. If you don't get any fruit flies indoors, move your tubs of over-ripe fruit outside in warm weather; soon, some fruit flies will show up.

It the side of the fruit-tub is gently bumped, the fruit flies will do a bit of a fly-about above it for for a few seconds, then settle on some new resting place. It is convenient for the fruit flies if you have some nearby house plants for them to rest on; grasses are especially useful, because they provide many different resting spots. Fruit flies are busy little things, eating, interacting, resting and reproducing. Fruit flies do not seem to be disease transmitters to people, since they are not attracted to rotting meat or spoiled dairy products. Fruit flies can be any interesting and low-cost addition to your kitchen scene. If the fruit fly tribe gets too big, quietly slip a plastic lid over one of the tubs and take it outside and open it. The fruit flies will quickly disperse. It helps to have a small compost heap in a corner of the back yard on which to deposit the rotten fruit.

 

 

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Web page last updated on 26 July 2009.