Here we can ask for differences between similar species to help us identifying species in iNaturalist.
Does someone know what’s the difference between Drosophila melanogaster and Drosophila immigrans?
I can look it up and get back to you in a day or two.
There is a journal post for Drosophila by carnifex: https://www.inaturalist.org/posts/43576-id-tips-for-common-drosophila-species-not-every-fruit-fly-is-drosophila-melanogaster
While it doesn’t explicitly compare D. immigrans with D. melanogaster, it gives a brief description of both (and a lot of other species of the genus) and includes photos.
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Considering they are quite distant in the Drosophila key, the differences in appearance are not great. Easiest one is that immigrans has both cross veins and the tips of the longitudinal veins darkened. There is no darkening in the wings of melanogaster. D. immigrans has 8 rows of acrostichal bristles on top of the thorax, melanogaster only 6 rows. The arista on immigrans has 5-7 dorsal branches not counting the fork at the tip, 4-5 in melanogaster. The male genitalia are very different but it is not easy to describe such complex structures. The above is based on the descriptions in Bachli et al. 2004, Fauna Entomologica Scandinavica.
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Thank you so much!!
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