Culturing Entomophthora muscae Berkeley
Interested in cultivating your own zombie flies? Anyone can do it with persistence and the right tools.
Culturing E. muscae Berkeley in the lab:
Culturing E. muscae Berkeley at home:
PDF: Maintaining E. muscae in vivo culture in a private residence
Isolation of high molecular weight genomic DNA from E. muscae
https://www.protocols.io/view/isolation-of-high-molecular-weight-genomic-dna-fro-b6kercte
Drosophila histology
I used this paraffin-embedding and microtomy protocol to localize E. muscae Berkeley cells in infected flies:
https://www.protocols.io/view/paraffin-embedding-microtomy-and-fluorescence-in-s-k5ecy3e
Easy method to sort Drosophila pupae
This transparency hack from Dave Zucker and Tom Alisch makes it easy to sort pupae.
https://www.protocols.io/view/video-protocol-for-sorting-drosophila-pupae-bpq3mmyn
Drosophila CO2 anesthesia via SodaStream
In working with flies in my apartment, I’ve found it helpful to knock them out with CO2 using a SodaStream before transferring them to a chilled aluminum block for sorting.
PDF: Home anesthesia setup components
Catching wild Drosophila and E. muscae
I suspect that you can find E. muscae in any temperate environment where host flies are present. This protocol can serve as a good starting point for catching wild fruit flies and, hopefully, E. muscae, in your own backyard.