As the native plants recover, so do many rare species of insects.
There are currently over 500 endemic species of pomace flies, native only to Hawaiʻi and found nowhere else in the world. The elder mānele trees in front of you are the exclusive host plants to two of these small, rare picture-wing flies, Drosophila mimica and Drosophila engyochracea. Ecologist Dr. David Foote has been counting the populations of these two flies periodically since the mid-1990s by attracting them to sponges marinated in a concoction of decaying mushrooms. He is encouraged about the future of Drosophila mimica, as this species is thriving, by feeding on the rotting fruits of the recovering mānele trees. It is a much different story for the Drosophila engyochracea, whose populations have plummeted in the last three decades. Very few flies have been observed since 2007. The villains of this story are alien predators, including yellow jacket wasps and, possibly, a newly arrived spider that lives in the bark of these mānele trees. As predators of the Drosophila engyochracea, they are eating this species to extinction.Is there something we missed for this itinerary?
Itineraries across USA
Acadia
Arches National Park
Badlands
Big Bend
Biscayne
Black Canyon Of The Gunnison
Bryce Canyon
Canyonlands
Capitol Reef
Carlsbad Caverns
Channel Islands
Congaree
Crater Lake
Cuyahoga Valley
Death Valley
Dry Tortugas
Everglades
Gateway Arch
Glacier
Grand Canyon
Grand Teton
Great Basin
Great Smoky Mountains
Guadalupe Mountains
Haleakalā
Hawaiʻi Volcanoes
Hot Springs
Indiana Dunes
Isle Royale
Joshua Tree
Kenai Fjords
Kobuk Valley
Lassen Volcanic
Mammoth Cave
Mesa Verde
Mount Rainier
North Cascades
Olympic
Petrified Forest
Pinnacles
Rocky Mountain
Saguaro
Shenandoah
Theodore Roosevelt
Virgin Islands
Voyageurs
White Sands
Wind Cave
Yellowstone
Yosemite
Zion