Introduction

Drosophila melanogaster, the common fruit fly belonging in the Order Diptera, has been used for lab experiments since T.H. Morgan started his experiments in 1907. Drosophila make good genetic specimens, because they are small, easy to culture in the laboratory, and produce many offspring. It is easy to anesthetize them, and they have a short generation time (Geiger, 2002). Differences in body features help distinguish between male and female flies. Females are slightly larger and have a light-colored, pointed abdomen. The abdomen of the male fly is dark and blunt. The male flies also have dark bristles and sex combs on the upper portion of their forelegs(Flagg, 2005).
Drosophila melanogaster use hydrophobic odorants called pheromones in the ritualized process of mating. Our hypothesis states that blind and wild type male flies will mate at equal rates, because they use their pheromones to find a mate regardless of whether or not they can see. These are picked up by sensory neurons located on their antenna, maxillary palps and most of the surface area of the fly (Galindo, 2001). They use these for the regulation of sexual behaviors. In Drosophila this can be shown by the modulation of the males’ courtship behaviors. Males use the receptors in their legs, wings, and antenna when pursuing a female. It has been determined that if the necessary pheromones are absent, there will be no male courtship response to the female (Lin, 2005).
The purpose of this investigation is to study the mating behavior between wild-type males and wild-type females, and white-eyed males with wild-type females to see if these flies use their vision or their pheromones to mate. Conversely, behavior between normal and white-eyed males mated with white-eyed females was also observed (Flagg, 2005). There are several steps which are followed to achieve copulation between a male and a female fly detailed below:

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