PHYSIOLOGICAL ENTOMOLOGY (Wiley-Blackwell): Houdini fly inflates head to break walls.

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• published: 17 Mar 2011
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This supplementary video to Strohm, E. (2011), How can cleptoparasitic drosophilid flies emerge from the closed brood cells of the red Mason bee? (Physiological Entomology, 36: 77--83. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-3032.2010.00764.x) shows a Houdini fly (Cacoxenus indagator) break through a wall by inflating its head. In the first part, the video shows enclosed flies in an original brood cell with still folded wings. Flies are moving at the convex side of the brood cell (i.e. the side that points to the entrance) and appear to examine the brood cell wall. In the second part, a fly presses its head into a crevice in the brood cell wall and abruptly expands its ptilinum. Using this tactic, flies can break away pieces off the brood cell wall and prepare a hole for emergence. In this case, the fly was not successful. Note that eclosed flies make their attempts in the upper part of the brood cell wall. In the third part of the video, a fly with still folded wings passes through a hole that was prepared by the joint effort of several flies. Peristaltic movements of the body of the fly body enable it to make its way through the small hole. The article was published by Wiley-Blackwell in PHYSIOLOGICAL ENTOMOLOGY, Volume 36, Issue 1, pages 77--83, March 2011: http://doi.wiley.com/10.1111/j.1365-3032.2010.00764.x