News in Brief Animals

Scent of a fruit fly larva comes from its gut microbes

Bacteria, not larvae themselves, produce smell that attracts others of their kind

MMM…GUT SMELL  Adult fruit flies as well as larvae may use the whiff of excreted gut bacteria from youngsters of their kind to choose food sites where other fruit flies have flourished.

Sylvie Bouchard/Shutterstock.com

By Susan Milius

- More than 2 years ago

Fruit fly larvae’s alluring and socially important odor turns out not to come from the flies at all, but from their gut microbes.