Drosophila Courtship Song - Genetics - University of Leicester

The courtship behavior of Fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster). This film was made for the University of Leicester open day to celebrate the 200th Anniversary of Charles Darwins birth. It shows an example of sexual selection; a special case of natural selection.

The film was produced by the Department of Genetics at the University of Leicester. For further information about genetics at Leicester see; http://www.le.ac.uk/genetics/index.html and for further information about behavior in fruit flies see; http://www.le.ac.uk/genetics/pages/staff/staff_pages/kyriacou.html

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Drosophila Courtship Song
• fruit fly behavior
• University of Leicester
• sexual selection
• Drosophila melanogaster
• Genetics

[qwertypluss]

How do you get the sound? Is it due to the device beneath the Drosophila?

[UniversityLeicester]

@qwertypluss The Perspex case containing the Drosophila is standing on a microphone element. The box that this is all housed in has been made by a member of the University of Leicester Department of Genetics. The box also has a headphone socket and usually students can study the courtship song live. This recording was made to be shown at a University of Leicester Open Day, so that people could hear the song as they looked around the Department of Genetics.

[felpaluche]

Cute courtship!

[smellyflybrain]

Very cool! Would it be possible to include what the waveforms would look like on a graph?

[qwertypluss]

@UniversityLeicester

Brilliant, thanks for the explanation.

[thewhitebarrywhite]

titillating