It belongs to the Drosophila melanogaster species group where it forms its own subgroup.

[2] As a lab model species, it requires banana-opuntia-protein food.

The name was also used for a fossil (†Drosophila elegans Statz, 1940) from the Upper Oligocene of the Rott Formation in Germany.

[3] The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature ruled for the name to be conserved for the extant species by suppression of its unused senior homonym (replaced by †Drosophila statzi Ashburner and Bachli, 2006).

This article related to members of the fly family Drosophilidae is a stub.