The linkage map of the house fly, Musca domestica L.

TOTAL of nine house fly mutants which occurred spontaneously or were A induced by X-ray were listed by two Russian investigators, SARKISSIAN (1941) and SEREBROVSKY (1941). These may have been the first attempts at the formal study of the genetics of Musca donestica L. Apparently these-investigators did not continue and extend this work subsequently. Recently, in connection with problems of resistance to insecticides, the importance of basic genetic studies of the house fly has gradually been recognized by many investigators. Morphological mutants are necessary as markers in studies designed to reveal the mode of inheritance of resistance to insecticides. To date a considerable number of house fly mutants have been found and assembled by the Institute of Zoology, University of Pavia, Italy (MILANI 1954, and other publications) , by the Department of Genetics, Osaka University, Japan (TSUKAMOTO, OGAKI and KOBAYASHI 1957, and other publications) and by this laboratory (SULLIVAN and HIROYOSHI 1960; HIROYOSHI 1960). HIROYOSHI (1960) demonstrated the existence of all five autosomal linkage groups and numbered them. However, no mutant marker has yet been found for the sex chromosome. Independently TSUKAMOTO, BABA and HIRAGA ( 1961 ) classified their mutants into five linkage groups and, after receiving some mutant stocks from us, proved that their linkage groups correspond to the ones reported by the author. Since more than two marker genes are now known for each chromosome (except the sex chromosome) the author has attempted to prepare a standard linkage map of the house fly, which should be of use to all workers on geneticabproblems in this organism.