Drosophila elegans is a flower-feeding species of fruit flies, belonging to the family Drosophilidae. It is found in Taiwan and the Philippines in Asia.
It belongs to the Drosophila melanogaster species group where it forms its own subgroup. There are two morphs (brown and black) of the species. The difference is due to the percentages of 7-pentacosene and 9-pentacosene on the cuticle.Sexual isolation and cuticular hydrocarbons in Drosophila elegans. K Ishii, Y Hirai, C Katagiri, MT Kimura, Heredity, 2001
As a lab model species, it requires banana-opuntia-protein food. Its genome has been sequenced in 2011.
The name was also used for a fossil (†Drosophila elegans Statz, 1940) from the Upper Oligocene of the Rott Formation in Germany.Neue Dipteren (Brachycera et Cyclorhapha) aus dem Oberoligozän von Rott. G Statz, Palaeontographica Abteilung A, 1940, 91, pages 120-174 The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature ruled for the name to be conserved for the extant species by suppression of its unused senior homonym (replaced by †Drosophila statzi Ashburner and Bachli, 2006).OPINION 2143 (Case 3306) Drosophila elegans Bock & Wheeler, 1972 (Insecta, Diptera): specific name conserved at the International Commission of Zoological NomenclatureDrosophilidae (Diptera). Irina Brake and Gerhard Baechli, World Catalogue of Insects, Volume 9, 2008, page 126
See also List of Drosophila species List of sequenced animal genomes
References
Genetics of divergence in male wing pigmentation and courtship behavior between Drosophila elegans and D. gunungcola. SD Yeh, SR Liou, JR True, Heredity, 2006 Incipient reproductive isolation between two morphs of Drosophila elegans (Diptera: Drosophilidae). Y Hirai, MT Kimura, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 1997
External links
Drosophila elegans at insectoid.info Husbandry Information for Drosophila elegans at the Drosophila Species Stock Center