Occurrence of Entomophthora muscae isolated from Flies in South Korea

Occurrence of Entomophthora muscae isolated from Flies in South Korea

Kyung-Gu Min1, Jeong-Heon Kim1, Yoon-Jin Park2, Tae-Seok Oh1,2, Myoung-Jun Jang1, 2,*

1Department of plant resource, Kongju National University

 2Kongju National University Legumes Green Manure Resource Center

*Email: plant119@kongju.ac.kr

In June 2023, at the Oat field on Kongju National University’s Yesan Campus (36°40’04.4″N 126°51’43.7″E), flies infected with an entomopathogenic fungus were discovered, hanging with their wings folded backward. The abdominal region of the infected flies was swollen with fungal hyphae and they were observed to wrap around the stem using their legs and proboscis. The primary conidia were campanulate in shape, measuring 13.42 – 19.27 × 16.69 – 22.46 μm. Analysis of the internal transcribed spacer rDNA sequence and the 28S large subunit sequence revealed that the entomopathogenic fungus was 99% identical to Entomophthora muscae.