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I have been able to see for a few moments how the female and male fruit flies get closer until they are both face to face and have kissed.
I have captured the sequence of images for La Vanguardia’s Readers’ Photos. It seemed to me like a kind of ritual, as if the male was asking for the female’s acceptance, because afterwards they copulated. Of course, everything has been super fast.
I was surprised to see this pair of small Terellia flies, the fruit flies, that were inside the artichoke leaves in the garden of the Pedralbes monastery in Barcelona.
They seemed to be courting each other and at one point their mouths were so close that it was as if they smelled each other or, better yet, as if they were actually kissing.
The truth is that it was a very tender scene. It has not been possible for me to focus better because everything has happened quickly and, also, because of the smallness of these insects. We can appreciate at least the moment with these images of the female and the male. She is the one with the ovipositor.
Also called ovipositor or ovipositor, it is an organ used by females of many insects to lay eggs. In this case, this report on the fruit fly allows us to see it in detail.
It is also interesting to look at his eyes. This small 7 mm fly has bright turquoise green, so much so that when we look at them they seem to radiate many other shades.
