This project involves the study of Drosophila melanogaster in order to better understand fruit fly behavior in relation to image perceptions and ability to locate or avoid food sources. The results of this experiment can be used to determine fruit fly intelligence, as well as open up more experiments to further the research of animal and insect intelligence. It may also be used to deter fruit flies from food sources or unwanted locations using certain images. Many studies have been conducted to investigate fruit flies' comprehension and their various behaviors in order to better understand them, but not many on if certain images can aid or hinder the flies from locating essential food sources.

1 hypothesized that when flies see vertical line images and horizontal line images, more would move toward the vertical lines and locate yeast by traveling to those images. I based this off of a study done on flight patterns of Drosophila melanogaster, which concluded that the flies flew erratically when surrounded by horizontal lines, but flew in more conventional patterns when surrounded by vertical lines(Frye 853). I also hypothesized that when viewing images of the parasitoid wasp Leptopilina heterotoma, flies would avoid the images and ergo not be able to eat the yeast. I based this off of a journal article which revealed that when seeing these wasps, fruit flies would medicate their offspring to prevent infection(Kacson 2).

I enacted my experiment by using a cylindrical "choice chambers from Carolina Biological Supply and lining the clear walls with various images for testing. I also added 0.15 grams of yeast throughout the cylinder as the food source. To obtain data, I used an iPhone application to take a picture of the system per minute for 60 minutes, and then counted the amount of flies that went to certain locations in the hour time period. 20 flies were starved for 1 hour before testing, and different flies were used for each test.

In the vertical/horizontal line experiments, the flies had a preference for vertical lines over horizontal lines, which supports my hypothesis. In the wasp experiments, many flies refused to enter the cylinder with wasp images even though there was yeast present, which also supports my initial hypothesis.