News Animals

Insect form of sexual frustration takes toll

Whiff of female but no mating makes males die young

GREAT EXPECTATIONS  Fruit flies have their own versions of anticipating events, and failure to mate or eat as expected turns out to have physiological costs.

DChai21/Wikimedia Commons

By Susan Milius

- More than 2 years ago

Smelling female fruit flies but not mating with them can actually shorten males’ lives.

Drosophila melanogaster males not allowed to mate despite receiving tantalizing   chemical sex messages lose about 35 to 40 percent of their normal life span, says molecular geneticist Scott Pletcher of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.