Naked Science Forum

Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: Bob1942 on 05/09/2004 11:45:24

Title: Training Animals!
Post by: Bob1942 on 05/09/2004 11:45:24

Has anyone ever managed to train a species of fly?

Title: Re: Training Animals!
Post by: chris on 06/09/2004 13:28:35

Hi Bob,

Yes, absolutely, people have been training flies, for years in fact.

Bizarre as it sounds, tiny fruit flies (drosophila) can be trained in various ways - for example to navigate through mazes or to avoid specific things.

A recent article about fruit fly memory and brain asymmetry gives a bit more background to it :

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/articles/article/katarneycolumn9.htm/

Chris

"I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception"
 - Groucho Marx

Title: Re: Training Animals!
Post by: neilep on 06/09/2004 16:48:34

In honour of empirical study, I have caught a fly this morning and I already have it doing roll-overs, saying 'sausages' and fetching grains of rice on command !!...additionaly the flys on my trousers are trained to come down on command too [;)]

'Men are the same as women...just inside out !' (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.world-of-smilies.de%2Fhtml%2Fimages%2Fsmilies%2FSchilder2%2Finsanes.gif&hash=4f18432872d0188852a6f4a3170ec758)

Title: Re: Training Animals!
Post by: Bob1942 on 07/09/2004 15:17:11

So which sadist trained midges to bite me when I attempt to do the gardening? I have a solution,no gardening!

Title: Re: Training Animals!
Post by: chris on 07/09/2004 15:25:15

No, don't stop gardening because otherwise the garden will grow into a wilderness and play host to even hungrier creatures than midges !

"I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception"
 - Groucho Marx

Title: Re: Training Animals!
Post by: Donnah on 11/09/2004 04:29:32

triffids?