How Does a Fruit Fly Reproduce?

Mating

Mating fruit flies

The scientific name for the common fruit fly is Drosophila melanogaster. Fruit fly reproduction starts with courtship behavior. The male fruit fly, which is smaller than the female, vibrates his wings and dances to attract the female. If the female accepts the male's advances, mating begins. The male mounts the female and deposits a few hundred sperm into her. The mating process takes about a half-hour. Each sperm is very long. The fruit flies' sperm is 300 times as long as a human sperm (Pitnick et al., 1995).

Laying Eggs

Fruit fly egg

The female stores the sperm for up to 2 weeks. She gradually uses the sperm as she fertilizes each egg. The female lays her eggs in unripe or slightly ripe fruit. By the time the eggs hatch, the fruit will be decayed. Decayed fruit is a food source for fruit flies. She lays only a limited amount of eggs at a time so that the hatched larva has enough food to eat. The female fruit fly fertilizes each egg that she lays with a few sperm to ensure fertilization. The female may mate with another male before she has used all of her stored sperm, which means that a female fruit fly may carry the sperm of more than one male at a time.

Larva

Fruit fly pupa

About one day after fertilization, the half-millimeter-long egg hatches and a larva emerges. The larva eats a lot and grows rapidly. The larva molts after the first day, again on the second day and again on the fourth day, to allow for the fast growth. On the fourth molt the larva turns into a pupa. In the pupa, the larva transforms into a winged insect. After four days, the transformed larva emerges as a fully developed fruit fly. Within 8 to 12 hours, the fruit fly is capable of mating.

Resources

• Learn More About Fruit Flies at Animal Diversity Web