Lab-reared maggots may save Darwin's famous finches
Thursday, August 4, 2016 - 09:01
in Biology & Nature
Raising maggots may not sound glamorous, but that doesn't mean it's not important. In the latest issue of the Journal of Insect Science, Paola Lahuatte, a junior researcher at the Charles Darwin Foundation, and her colleagues reveal how they used chicken blood to rear the larvae of the parasitic fly Philornis downsi in the lab. This protocol may be the first to effectively rear an avian blood-feeding fly from egg to adult in the absence of its host. More importantly, it may prove to be a crucial tool in the fight to save endemic birds in the Galapagos islands, including the critically endangered mangrove finch.