FlyCounter: a simple software for counting large populations of small clumped objects in the laboratory.

While several software programs exist to count bacterial colonies on a Petri plate, no suitable solution is available for quick and reliable enumeration of small, live insects. We have written a program called FlyCounter that can obtain counts from images, even if insects are highly clumped in space. We also describe a simple and inexpensive system for anesthetizing and capturing high-quality images of the small insects.