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Floris van Breugel on diving flies in PNAS

Monday, November 20, 2017 - 14:00

More than a century ago, American writer Mark Twain observed a curious phenomenon at Mono Lake, just to the east of Yosemite National Park: enormous numbers of small flies would crawl underwater to forage and lay eggs, but each time they resurfaced, they would appear completely dry.

In his travel memoir Roughing It, Twain wrote: "You can hold them under water as long as you please—they do not mind it—they are only proud of it. When you let them go, they pop up to the surface as dry as a patent office report, and walk off as unconcernedly as if they had been educated especially with a view to affording instructive entertainment to man in that particular way."

Caltech biologist Michael Dickinson, Esther M. and Abe M. Zarem Professor of Bioengineering and Aeronautics, became similarly intrigued by these so-called diving flies—scientifically known as Ephydra hians—on a vacation to Yosemite 22 years ago. Now the principal investigator of a laboratory that specializes in insect flight, Dickinson teamed up with former Caltech postdoctoral scholar Floris van Breugel (now at University of Washington) to study the mysterious behavior of the Mono Lake flies.

The two have now characterized the unique adaptations of the Mono Lake fly and the mechanisms it utilizes to crawl underwater without getting wet. The work is published in a paper in the November 20 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Mono Lake has a very delicate and unique ecosystem," says van Breugel. "Conservationists have fought hard to prevent its loss. We were interested in the Mono Lake flies not only because their behavior is so unusual, but because they are a crucial species for the lake's ecosystem and food web. Mono Lake flies are a crucial component to the local ecosystem, acting as a food source for spiders and for migratory and nesting birds."

 

Read the full article from Caltech
More news: Washington Post | National Geographic
Photo: Floris van Breugel/Caltech

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