the Drane fly

[Chris Raper]

On Mon, 14 Dec 1998 23:02:19 -0800, "David Aspinall" <davya at clara.net>
wrote:

Hi David,

>I have been trying to keep the hover fly called the Drane-fly (Eristalis
>Tenax) in captivity  with out much success .

I think that should be _Drone_ Fly - as in the name for a male bee.

I have never tried rearing Diptera but...

>I put three plants and a big bowl of  stagnant water the cage .

Sounds like a number of possibilites:
1. poisoning from something in the cage - the wood?
2. starvation - do you have plenty of nectar-rich plants in the cage?
3. light/temperature - in the wild they seem heavily dependant on
strong sunlight to warm themselves up - they are often seen sunning on
flat flower heads - particularly Umbellifers. Also, what temperature
are you keeping the cage at?

Hope that helps
Chris R.