Leaf Miner Fly Babies Scribble All Over Your Salad | Deep Look
16,288This fly’s larvae tunnel inside bitter-tasting greens like arugula and kale, leaving squiggly marks behind. The plants fight back with toxic chemicals. So before laying her eggs, the fly mom digs into a leaf and slurps its sap – a taste test to find the least toxic spot for her offspring.
SUBSCRIBE to Deep Look! http://goo.gl/8NwXqt
DEEP LOOK is an ultra-HD (4K) short video series created by KQED San Francisco and presented by PBS Digital Studios. See the unseen at the very edge of our visible world. Explore big scientific mysteries by going incredibly small.
---
As they feed inside a leaf’s spongy layer, leaf miners etch intricate patterns that are visible to us on the leaf’s surface. The whitish tan or light gray markings can be neatly serpentine or converge and have a blotch-like appearance, depending on what insect made them. Many different flies, butterflies and moths lay eggs on the leaves of citrus, vegetables and ornamental plants that grow into leaf miner larvae.
One leaf miner that gardeners might find in their arugula is the larva of a fly called Scaptomyza. The fly is related to – and looks a lot like – the fruit fly you might find buzzing around your ripe bananas.
The chemicals called isothiocyanates that give leafy greens like arugula their bitter taste are precisely the plants’ defense mechanism against pests. Scaptomyza flies have evolved to tolerate low levels of these compounds. One way in which the flies deal with these toxic chemicals is by laying their eggs on the leaves with the lowest concentrations.
---
--- Can leaf miners kill plants?
Leaf miners rarely do enough damage to even come close to killing a plant, but they make individual leaves inedible. If given enough time, a leaf miner can be particularly damaging to vegetables that are harvested specifically for their leaves. But don’t worry if you mistakenly eat a larva – it won’t make you sick.
--- How do you treat leaf miners?
Most backyard gardeners only need to remove the damaged leaves by hand. Since leaf miners are tucked inside the leaf, insecticides aren’t very effective and can hurt beneficial pest predators like wasps, spiders and ladybugs.
Gardeners with a greenhouse or large numbers of plants can use parasitic wasps to control leaf miners.
---+ Read the entire article on KQED Science:
https://www.kqed.org/science/1973500/leaf-miner-fly-babies-scribble-all-over-your-salad
---+ More great Deep Look episodes:
Born Pregnant: Aphids Invade with an Onslaught of Clones
https://youtu.be/vrzalLssomg
Sharpshooter Insects’ Sexy Vibrations Spell Trouble in the Vineyard
https://youtu.be/uFA614SEDMQ
---+ Shoutout!
🏆Congratulations🏆 to the following 5 fans on our Deep Look Community Tab for correctly answering that the fly is cutting the leaf with her ovipositor:
Wei Lun Fung
Kitten Alburn
Navid Valente
Bladeziken
Heavenly Emperor
---+ Thank you to our Top Patreon Supporters ($10+ per month)!
Egg-Roll
Shebastian Reyes
Wild Turkey
Josh Kuroda
Chris B Emrick
Karen Reynolds
dane rosseter
David Deshpande
Daisuke Goto
Joshua Murallon Robertson
Elizabeth Ann Ditz
Kelly Hong
Kevin Judge
Gerardo Alfaro
Robert Amling
Laurel Przybylski
Leonhardt Wille
Sonia Tanlimco
El Samuels
Mary Truland
Shelley Pearson Cranshaw
Supernovabetty
Carrie Mukaida
Sayantan Dasgupta
Aurora
Roberta K Wright
monoirre
Rick Wong
Kristy Freeman
Silvan
Caitlin McDonough
Misia Clive
Carlos Carrasco
Nathan Wright
Levi Cai
Nicolette Ray
Blanca Vides
Titania Juang
Teresa Lavell
Scott Faunce
Cristen Rasmussen
---+ About KQED
KQED, an NPR and PBS affiliate in San Francisco, California, serves Northern California and beyond with a public-supported alternative to commercial TV, radio and web media.
Funding for Deep Look is provided in part by PBS Digital Studios. Deep Look is is supported by The National Science Foundation, the Dirk and Charlene Kabcenell Foundation, the Vadasz Family Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Campaign 21 and the members of KQED.
#leafminers #deeplook