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Environmental contamination with metals Such as manganese(Mn)and nickel (Ni)often results in elevated concentrations of these metals in plant tissues.At high concentrations.these metals are known to have detrimental effects on certain insect herbivores.Using laboratory bioassays and artificial diet,We investigated the development and survival of a cosmopolitan insect detritivore.Megaselia scalaris(Diptera:Phoridae),exposed to concentrations of Mn and Ni reaching 2 600 mg Mn/kg and 5 200 mg Ni/kg dry mass(dm)in artiflcial diet.Surprisingly,Ni and Mn at the concentrations tested did not harm this fly.Treatment groups from diets with 260-2 600 mg Mn/kg dm and 1300-5 200 mg Ni/kg dm had significantly shorter lalval development times.overail times to adult emergence,and both pupariation and pupal eclosion times compared to a control group.Wing length of females.a correlate of adult fitness,was also greater in metal treatment groups.Other measures including rate of egg hatch,percentage of emerging flies that were female,and wing length of male flies,were not significantly different in metal treatment groups.We conclude that Megaselia scalaris is tolerant of exceptionally high levels of Mn and Ni.