Comparative measurements are presented of the sequence complexity of the RNA stored in the eggs of two dipteran flies, Musca domestica and Drosophila melanogaster. The genome of Musca is about five times the size of the Drosophila genome and contains about 3.6 times as much single-copy sequence. As shown earlier, the interspersion of repetitive and single-copy sequence is of the short-period fo...

Griff ER, Kane TC. A housefly sensory motor integration laboratory. Adv Physiol Educ 34: 106–110, 2010; doi:10.1152/ advan.00068.2009.—Insects have many interesting behaviors that can be observed in an introductory biology laboratory setting. In the present article, we describe several reflexes using the housefly Musca domestica that can be used to introduce students to sensory and motor respon...

[Brief letters to the Editor that make specific scientific reference to papers published previously in THE JOtrRNAL OF GENERAL PHWSIOLOOY are invited. Receipt of such letters will be acknowledged, and those containing pertinent scientific comments and scientific criticisms will be published.] Dear Sir: The recent article entitled "Do Flies Have a Red Receptor?" by Goldsmith (1) answers this que...

The objective of this study was to isolate and identify fungal species found in natural association with adults of Musca domestica. The adult insects were collected from two natural breeding grounds: hog pens and an urban sanitary landfill. The isolated fungi were identified as: Aspergillus flavus (23.8%), A. niger var. niger (14.4%), Penicillium corylophilum (21.4%), P. fellutanum (11.9%), Cla...

A total of 161 strains of Campylobacter fetus subsp. jejuni were isolated from house flies (Musca domestica). The carrier rates detected were 50.7% in flies captured on a chicken farm and 43.2% in flies from a piggery. The relative prevalences of Campylobacter coli, C. jejuni, and nalidixic acid-resistant thermophilic campylobacters were 90.1, 6.2, and 3.7%, respectively. The results indicate t...

Information on the stimulatory and inhibitory effects of cuticular alcohols on growth and virulence of insecticidal fungi is unavailable. Therefore, we set out to describe the content of cuticular and internal alcohols in the body of housefly larvae, pupae, males and females. The total cuticular alcohols in larvae, males and females of Musca domestica were detected in comparable amounts (4.59, ...