Feb 25, 2020
Since I’ve been growing carnivorous plants, I’ve seen many flies captured and eaten by mites. This is the first time the fly showed up with the mites already eating it. I spotted this small fly on my Drosera Capensis. Something seemed odd about it. It had 3 large red spots on it. It didn’t look normal. On a hunch, I searched “red mites flies” and found that some mites attach themselves to flies as part of their lifecycle. (I guess hitching a ride is easier than learning to fly.) It's amazing that the fly can fly with all the added weight.
The video isn’t perfect. It was still quite sunny so the video is a little too bright for my taste.
Here are a few examples of red mites on flies.
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