Drosophilidae Leaf Breeders - Spoonfoot III

Brief description

The story of the Hawaiian Drosophilidae is an impressive one indeed. With more than 600 described Drosophilid species and hundreds more thought to exist but not yet decribed, Hawaii is a global diversity hotspot for this family of flies. There are more drosophilid species per unit area found here than anywhere else on earth. What's more impressive is that they may have all originated from a single ancestor that was likely blown to the islands hundreds of thousands of years ago. Once here, the group experienced what is known as adaptive radiation, with groups of flies evolving to fill isolated niches on different islands, generating the hundreds of species we see today. Ecologically and behaviorally diverse, the drosophilids of Hawaii are certainly a defining insect group for the UHIM collection and the history of Hawaiian entomology. The flies we need your help transcribing here today find themselves living in isolated trees within the Hawaiian rainforest! Please assist the UHIM with the transcription of this unique assemblage of Hawaiian Diptera. The total number of tasks for this dataset is: 500, number transcribed is 500 and number validated is 0. This data resource is harvested periodically into the main occurrence index.