Fruit Fly
Fruit Fly
Tiny flies drawn to the smell of ripening fruit.
Fruit flies are tiny insects that are often found hovering around ripe or decaying fruit.
💡 Fun Facts
- They are tiny flies drawn to the smell of ripening or rotting fruit.
- Some species are bred to be flightless so they can be fed to small pet frogs and spiders.
- They reproduce very quickly, making them one of the most studied animals in science!
Name Story
Drosophila melanogaster
means “the dew-loving fly with a black belly”
What does its name mean?
- Drosophila — dew-lovingGreek (drosos, 'dew' + philos, 'loving')
- melanogaster — black-belliedGreek (melas, 'black' + gastēr, 'belly')
This tiny fly, so often met hovering over a fruit bowl, carries the lovely name "dew-lover" and a dark patch on its tail-end that really does look like a black belly — and it has become the most studied little animal in the whole science of how living things pass on their features.