Hunkering Flies
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How a fly's antennae tell it whether to mate or hunker down.
Ever wonder what's inside a fly's... feeler? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with The Loh Down on Science saying I haven't either, but let's talk.
Fruit flies "hear" via their antennae, which pick up air vibrations – like the high-pitched sound males make to attract females.
Those antennae can also sense air currents. And whenever a breeze blows past walking flies, they immediately crouch... motionless.
Both wind and sound are caused by moving air. Yet a fly's micro-intellect can distinguish between them.
But how?
To find out, Caltech scientists took live flies and poked teensy electrodes into their brains.
When courtship songs were played to the flies, that stimulated certain antennal neurons.
Physically bending antennae, to mimic wind, stimulated totally different neurons.
Different stimuli – different neurons.
That's what tells a fly whether it's time to mate, or hunker down.
We mammals aren't so different. We've evolved specialized skin structures to distinguish specific touch sensations. Move forward or hunker down? Depends what we feel.
Next question: why do flies crouch in the breeze? To avoid injury? Stay near food? Stick together? The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the... you know.
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