Mating Fruit Flies

Description:

Male Fruit Flies perform a sequence of five behavioral patterns to court females. First, males orient themselves while playing a courtship song by horizontally extending and vibrating their wings. Soon after, the male positions itself at the rear of the female's abdomen in a low posture to tap female genitalia. Finally, the male curls its abdomen, and attempts copulation. Females can reject males by moving away, kicking and extruding their ovipositor. Copulation lasts around 15–20 minutes, during which males transfer a few hundred very long (1.76 mm) sperm cells in seminal fluid to the female.Females store the sperm in a tubular receptacle and in two mushroom-shaped spermathecae, sperm from multiple matings compete for fertilization.