
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