Hydei Fruit Fly Drosophila hydei

Here's the jaw-dropping fact: males produce sperm that are 23mm long — roughly ten times the entire male's body length. Found worldwide on compost piles, these large fruit flies sport distinctive variegated patterns on their thorax and are popular feeders in the pet trade. Despite diverging from their famous cousin D. melanogaster 50 million years ago, they remain closely related, offering a window into deep evolutionary time in a creature barely visible to the naked eye.