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
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.
Collecting E. muscae-infected fruit flies
Drosophila CO2 anesthesia at home
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
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