Quinaria-group
Guides
Drosophila guttifera
Drosophila guttifera is a species of vinegar fly in the Drosophila quinaria species group, notable for its distinctive polka-dotted wing pigmentation pattern. The species feeds on rotting mushrooms and has become an important model organism for studying the genetic mechanisms underlying complex morphological pattern formation. Its genome was sequenced in 2015, revealing how cis-regulatory enhancers drive wing pattern development. Research has demonstrated that the wing spot pattern shows thermal plasticity and is regulated by the wingless morphogen, while the yellow and tan genes are co-expressed to produce the abdominal and wing melanin spot patterns.
Drosophila quinaria
Drosophila quinaria is a species of fruit fly in the Drosophila quinaria species group, first described by Loew in 1866. Unlike most members of its species group, which feed primarily on mushrooms, D. quinaria has independently evolved a diet of decaying vegetative matter. The species is part of a speciose lineage of mushroom-breeding flies that have been studied for their specialist ecology, host-parasite interactions, population genetics, and evolution of immune systems.