Drosophila Breeding
1 PHOTOGRAPHS AND DESCRIPTIONS
1.1 PHOTOS OF FLIES
Below are several photographs of Drosophila melanogaster. The first photograph shows a female fly, as
the presence of the ovipositor is very clear. The first three photos are of wild types, while the last shows
ebony vestigials.
1.2 SELECTING FLIES
The photograph below shows the light microscope, and a picture of myself about to sex flies using the
microscope.
1.3 HABITAT
The following photos show the habitats set up for the fly breeding. The tubes were filled with
rehydrated food substrate, and a purple ladder was added. Flies were selected and added and the tube
was sealed with a sponge.
Due to availability of flies, tube “B1” did not have a scarlet female and white eyed male as initially
labelled. Instead it had a scarlet female, and two wild type males. One of the males was taken from
another group and the results shared, as we had concerns the first wild type male was no longer alive.
1.4 PHOTOGRAPHS OF RESULTS
Below the results of our breeding experiment are shown via photographs. “B2” was filled with white
eyed flies, while B1 appeared to be filled with a mixture of scarlet and wild type flies.
1.5 SECOND SET OF BREEDING EXPERIMENTS
We had chosen to breed a white eyed female with two wild type males (the former from the B1 tube).
We had disposed of all adults in the B2 tube and decided to leave it for another week to see what the
F3 generation was composed of. In the first experiment, the flies had failed to reproduce. In the second,
the generation was still composed entirely of white eyed flies, still suggesting that the white eyed
female ancestor was pregnant and did not breed with the ebony vestigial male. There was a third
experiment, which paired two apparently female white eyed flies with one male wild type. It seems that
the females had been males, and the wild type male had died. There were therefore no eggs or larvae.