Hold on to your seatbelt for this one.
Professor Elwyn Isaac from England’s University of Leeds has just discovered an astonishing behavior among fruit flies: after mating, females ditch their usual afternoon siesta in favor of engaging in intense foraging (ahem, that would be akin to domestic-type duties or housework).
The trigger? A “sex peptide” that is produced in the males’ accessory gland, the equivalent of the human prostate, and attaches itself to the surface of the sperm’s tail.
This sex peptides appears to have a chemical effect on the female, preventing her from taking her usual afternoon nap. This suggest the behavioral change has a purpose: to prepare females for the birth of offspring, and ensure successful paternity after mating.
Okay, so maybe you’re not so impressed about new tidbit about how the fruit fly—that buggy nuisance you see on rotting fruit and vegetables—mates and changes behavior. But fruit flies, if you recall from high school biology days, have been the center of attention in research circles for decades. For starters, the fruit fly’s genome has been fully mapped, so wide ranging genetic studies are possible. In terms of sleep studies:
