ENHANCEMENT OF RESOURCE FINDING EFFICIENCY BY VISUAL-STIMULI IN MUSCA-DOMESTICA (DIPTERA, MUSCIDAE)

In complex natural environments, flies must simultaneously perform man y behaviors such as food search, mate location, or predator avoidance. The concurrent performance of multiple behaviors may affect the effic iency with which any one task is performed. House flies commonly land near and pounce on other flies or fly-sized dark objects. We measured the effect of fly-like visual models on food foraging behavior After c onsuming a 1 mu l drop of 0.25 M sucrose, the success of flies at loca ting a similar drop located adjacent to a fly-sized model at varying d istances from the original drop was measured. The presence of the mode l greatly increased the proportion of flies able to locate a sucrose d rop near the model, and reduced the time to find the additional resour ce. The effect diminished as distance between the first and second suc rose drops increased. The response to fly-like objects may, thus, faci litate interactions among flies (e.g., mate finding) and at the same t ime increase the probability of locating patchily distributed and cryp tic resources.