| 🗡️🗡️A female spotted wing drosophila uses her serrated ovipositor to cut into firm fruit while it’s ripening on the bush. (The common fruit fly, with its smaller, smoother ovipositor, lays eggs in overly-ripe fruit in your kitchen.). 🤿After cutting into a berry, a female spotted wing drosophila lays a single egg inside. A white string attached to the egg serves as a kind of snorkel that allows the developing fly to breathe while it grows. 🥚Within three days, the egg hatches into a squirmy maggot. The maggot’s movements inside the fruit ruin its pulp. When it grows into a pupa, it breathes through two star-shaped tubes called spiracles. 🍓🍒In addition to strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries, spotted wing drosophila infest cherries and stone fruits. The insects are also a pest of wine grapes in Switzerland, though not in California. | 
