my compost bin has a lot of common fruit flies, drosophila melanogaster, and i caught a bunch of them to feed some mantises. most were caught as larvae. most are the standard wild type, but at least three are black. my camera is so bad it cant see flies, but these look exactly like the ebony mutation. another one has vestigial wings.
do fruit flies often have mutations in the wild? how does mutation interact with geography? my region is Aotearoa, so easily isolated from other populations
I don’t want you to think that everyone is ignoring your question, but please remember that only a tiny fraction of iNaturalist users are active here on the iNatForum. It’s likely that nobody who has seen your post has the expertise or personal experience you seek.
You can get an answer from the entire iNaturalist community by reviewing observations on the Explore page. Using this link to search for Fruit Flies (Family Tephritidae), you can see that there are currently 760 observations in 16 species from Aotearoa New Zealand. Of those, 80 observations have not yet been identified to species.
There are almost certainly more observations that have not yet been identified to family. If you have any expertise with this group, your help in identifying them would be appreciated.
This study could help answer your questions even if it was performed in Russia.
Also, welcome to the forum :)