# Eyeless drosophila melanogaster



## Blort (Feb 5, 2005)

Just wondering if any fly ranchers have tried to cross the wingless, flightless, curly wings, or gliders with the eyeless melanogaster :twisted:

Don't know if the two traits would crossbreed, but it seems like it would hamper the FF ability to make a run for it or to swarm near the top of the container when it is time to transfer flies. Might make fly wrangling easier, but might make it less of a challenge for the frogs or counter the favorable flightless/glider mutations.

http://flybase.bio.indiana.edu/.bin/fbi ... Bgn0005558
http://flybase.bio.indiana.edu/.bin/fbi ... 24848.data
http://flybase.bio.indiana.edu/.bin/fbi ... 24831.data

If you are in a fly facts mood, here's something about long life flies:
http://www.worldhealth.net/p/267,731.html

Marcos


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## Guest (Mar 8, 2005)

*Partially Geotaxic D. melanogastor*

Marcos,

The Partially Geotaxic D. melanogastor that we carry are eyeless. This is a great trait especially combined with the other characteristics of this line of flies... 

If you are interested in obtaining a culture - just send me an email...

Derek


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

Take this with a grain of salt but it has been discussed in the past that possibly tissues in the eyes of fruitflies might be one way that color pigments get passed to frogs. Like I said, "grain of salt" because this argument is put forward knowing nothing about the true chemical nature of an ff eye. But I do think that breeding flies that lack certain organs takes just a little bit more diversity out of our frog's diets.


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## Will (Feb 15, 2004)

Brent, I do remember this discussion on frognet and it is not without some merit. The eyes are full of opsins which are often linked to vitamin A. It is for this reason that I use white eyed flies, the opsins and granules are still there but are mislocalized (transport mutation). I find my white-vestigial cross to be healthier then my wt-vestigial cross, and there is the added benefit of the white mutation diminishing the predator avoidance response. Derek this is a dead easy cross if you want to try it, just do reciprocal crosses with a white mutant (w1118) and pull out the phenotypes you want. (white is recessive and on the X chromosome)

There are mutations that replace the wings with eyes, which would mean extra nutrients. The only problem is that the eyes are functional, which means optic nerves have to find there way to the brain causing lots of internal damage on the way. Over 90% of these flies die before pupation.

While I realize heavy genetic manipulation of an organism makes most uncomfortable, there is a lot of potential to push the envelope with drosophila as a feeder. Drosophila is a good organism for transgenics which really opens the door for the custom addition of desired supplements (producing small biogenerators), if you wanted to go down that path..


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## EDs Fly Meat (Apr 29, 2004)

*Hey*



> Just wondering if any fly ranchers have tried to cross the wingless, flightless, curly wings, or gliders with the eyeless melanogaster


Hi Marcos
To answer your question. I have not found too much a reason too. Some of the crosses create lethal genes and you get no production. I am happy with the current state of mutations, and there are plenty for the hobby. They certainly do their job well. Most people are happy with what is out there, the frogs certainly will agree. I see nothing wrong with experimentation of mutations, but it can be costly, and certainly is time consuming. It is an interesting idea, but I have not found a reason to check it out. Try it out and tell us what you find.  
Dave


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## Blort (Feb 5, 2005)

Thanks for the input. I'm finding that I spend as much time looking at my cultures as my vivarium, so I think I may be a fly geek. Interesting stuff about nutrition and such. It would be interesting to have a Centrum A-Z fly bred to be nutritious. I'll let you know if I decide to conduct any frankenstein fruit fly experiments or mess around with the flies from Derek. If I couldn only figure out how to breed the eyeless and turkish glider genes into my local mosquito population I would be much happier


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