Referee 2's Review:

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N.B. These are the comments made by the referee when reviewing an earlier version of this paper. Prior to publication the manuscript has been revised in light of these comments and to address other editorial requirements.
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Public Library of Science One

Manuscript Review

The Cayman Crab Fly Revisited – Phylogeny and Biology Drosophila endobranchia

This is an important contribution regarding both the ecological requirements and the phylogenetic position of one of the three crab flies that deserves to be published. During the quest for Drosophila endobrachia, a species dependent on land crabs to complete its life cycle and apparently endemic to the Caribbean Cayman islands, the authors discovered an unexpected habitat for infested host crabs and were able to collect 66 specimens, which 3x the number of specimens so far preserved in Museum’s collections. Such discovery is important also for developing policies of preserving the so far unprotected habitats of both the host crabs and its associated flies, which is seriously threaten. I consider the research well conceived and correctly executed. The methods are appropriate. The results are well described and the conclusions well supported by the data obtained by the authors and collected from the literature. The text is well written and easy to follow. The photographs are of excellent quality.

I recommend minor review as follows: .

Main Text: Minor corrections and suggestions were highlighted in bold red in the attached original file. The suggestions are usually in parentheses.

Figure 1C. The symbol # should be excluded

Figure 2.
Inappropriate capital letter. This is a recessive allele (refer to Lindsley & Zimm, 1992. The genome of Drosophila melanogaster. San Diego: Academic Press.)
amd (instead of Amd)

Figure 3. Scales are missing for figures C, D, (insert included) and F


Additional minor corrections or suggestions to the supporting information are detailed below:

Table S1. Drosophila endobranchia should be included in the table. Drosophila guaramunu and D. maculifrons are synonyms and accordingly the accession numbers to their sequenced genes should be merged.

Misspelled epithets:
acutilabella (instead of acutibella)
annulimana (instead of annulima)
euronotus (instead of euronotas)
aldrichi (instead of aldrichii)
pachuca (instead of pachua)
planitibia (instead of plantibia)
busckii (instead of buskii)
grimshawi (group) (instead of grimshawii)
acanthoptera (instead of acanthopera)

Misidentified strains:
pseudotalamancana (instead of talamanaca)
nappae (instead of angustibucca)

Duplicated lines:
huaylasi

Misplaced grouping:
atrata (calloptera group, instead of tripunctata group)

Inappropriate capital letter
amd (instead of Amd)


Figure S1A
#fly eggs should be replaced by fly eggs (n)

Figure S1B
# flies should be replaced by flies (n)

Figure S2
Inappropriate capital letter
amd (instead of Amd)

Figure S3
Misidentified strains:
pseudotalamancana (instead of talamanaca)
ornatifrons (instead of guarani)
maculifrons (instead of guaramunu)

Figure S4 B and C
Inappropriate capital letter
amd (instead of Amd)

Figure S5
Misspelled epithet:
hendeli (instead of hendelli)