Know about Fruit Flies
Learn more about the history and ongoing research into fruit fly genetics, immunology, and neuroscience, including behaviors like sleep, navigation, and socializing.
What do you know?
What are flies good for anyway?
Fruit flies have been studied for over a century in scientific research labs. You might not expect that we would share much with an animal so different from us, but these little creatures have played a big role in scientific discovery. Research in flies has helped elucidate aspects of biology so fundamental to our existence that they’re shared across millions of years of evolutionary history. You can use flies of your own to explore questions relating to animal behavior, genetics, or physiology…what will you choose to ask?
Fruit fly behavior
A fly’s brain is vastly simpler than a human’s, allowing scientists to think about the nervous system in a comprehensive way. How do different parts of the nervous system coordinate to give rise to behavior? Luckily, despite their relative simplicity, fruit flies perform a ton of interesting behaviors! Do any of the following examples of ongoing Drosophila research inspire your own scientific questions?
