A useful trick i just discovered

[mitch]

i keep parrots, they like fruit. frui means frui flies, try as you might, the fruitflies are evrywhere!!! it will drive you crazy!
so the other day i gave some of my birds some pear, and i ate the rest, i noticed fruitflies were comming from all around the house to my pear leftovers in my hand while i was eating it.

now ive always known that pears are the worst for fruit flies, well, that and corn. hmmm, bannanas are bad too..... but yah pear's the worst. anyway...

i got the idea to walk around the house slowly wih the pear and attract up all he flies like the pied piper. sure enough, they all came out and followed me. i then put the pear in my big tank and left the lid ajar and watched to make sure the anole diddnt escape. before long there were no more fruitflies buzzing around me, they were all in the tank, i carefully closed the lid as to not stir them up and before two long the anole was snapping flies out of the air all over, within an hour he was on the pear eating them as they came for food.
then he starts eating the pear!!!

just starts chewing and licking and smucking it up, not something id expect an anole to do bu i suppose it was juicy and he HAD just finished a big meal.

he is still hunting them down today. difference is now there are thousands! its like, my plan backfired in a way, i provided a great foodscource and place to breed. and they breed FAST!
they do these little dances around from fly to fly and communicate by bending wings at eachoher or making odd stances.

the reason i shared this is because it helped 2 fold, 1, i have a self-sustaining food supply for my small herps, and 2, i got the fruitflies out of my airspace!!!!

the only drawback is theres more fruitflies in the tank than nessisary (or consumable) and if i open it, it will be like pandoras box.

oh well

does anyone feel this is a bad idea? i think if heres no problems with fruiflies as food, then its going to save me some money on crickets.

 

[edward]

Hi Mitch,
Most serious dart frog keepers rear fruit flies for their animals but they prefer to keep non-flying FFs so they don't colonize the rest of the house.
To help control the wild FFs in the house, try placing a small container of diluted to 50% apple cider or balsalmic vinegar and a drop of dish soap out near the birds. The flies will be attracted to the solution and the soap will cause the flies to sink and drown. Other people trap the flies by placing an inverted top (like a funnel) over a taller jar with some paper towels mositened with the vinegar solution out and when the flies have gathered in the jar they place the jar in the fridge for about 15 minutes and then feed out the flies.
I have a small paperback book on anoles from the 1970s that lists them as occasionally eating fruit. They might also take fruit babyfood like day geckos and this is also usually a good way to get some more vitamin-mineral supplements into your anoles.
Ed

 

[mitch]

hmm, good point

im not too worried about the fruitflies tho, i mean, theyre just fruit flies.
tho im sure fred (my cockatoo) has other oppinions

they pretty much hound him while he eats

 

[edward]

Hi Mitch,
This is true until a visitor finds them doing the back stroke in their drink or dessert.
A gentleman I know in Sweden who raises dart frogs told me a story about his wife throwing a dinner party and his wife and the guests becoming annoyed by the FFs getting into their glasses of wine.
Ed

 

[stefanie]

perhaps leaving smaller amounts of fruit out would lessen the fly population. i mean, if there is a smaller fruit supply, then a smaller group of flies would be able to live off of it.

also, anoles definitely enjoy fruit once in a while. i used to feed mine fruit baby food once a week. apricots and pears were the favorites.

 

[coen]

Fruit Fly Fight Club? (interesting fruit fly behaviour movies)

http://labworks.hms.harvard.edu/thriller/

 

[clarence]

the house I live in, even when kept spotless, seems to harbor fruitflies, gnats, and other small flying insects. When I moved in, my roommates were thrilled to find I kept carnivorous plants. As a result, the fruitfly infestations are nearly non-existant now.

I would suggest the Giant Sundew (Drosera dichotoma) which is is like a 1-foot wide clump if living, bristling flypaper.