Harrassing fruitflies

[xxianxx]

I have a fruit fly running around my monitor, presumably it is an escapee from my dart frog tank, generally I just squish them but with it being a bank holiday weekend in the UK (ie I get monday off on full pay so can get seriously hammered tonight!) I decided to chase it round my monitor with my cursor( just to mess with its head). After a couple of minutes I realized it always tried to escape anti clockwise, is this typical fruit fly behavior ? As to the particular species, I keep two, big ones and small ones, it's a small one or a baby big one.... probably .... I have no idea.

 

[oceanblue]

Despite masses of literature on fruit fly behaviour I don't think anyone has chased them with a cursor on a monitor in a research paper! Their behaviour is pretty stereotypical but I don't know if dfferent flies would all flee anti clockwise or if there would be a 50/50 split.

Two personal observations, most flies sitting on the outside of windows ignore objects from inside so I'm surprised fruit flies react to the surface of the monitor! Years ago, I observed a winged greenfly trapped in condensation on a window making a trail at 45 degrees directly towards a cactus in a pot on the green painted windowsill. My father said surely it couldn't see that as food, so I moved the cactus and the greenfly changed direction!

I hope your head doesn't feel to hammered tomorrow!

 

[xxianxx]

Thanks Bernard, I will try to replicate my results next bank holiday weekend with a larger sample of flies and three liters of cider.