Figure 5. Selective ovipoisitng and cannibalism in Drosophila melanogaster adults.

(a) Flies were assessed for their ovipositing preference between naked and Parafilm covered larval carcasses. Flies preferentially oviposited on and around naked carcasses. (b) Eggs were quantified (mean ± s.e.m.) on and around both naked and Parafilm wrapped larvae and a significant preference for naked carcasses was observed (***P = 0.0009), using two tailed student t-test. (c) Flies exhibit cannibalism when provided with ruptured stained larvae as evidenced by accumulation of green dye in fly abdomens. (d) Zoomed-in image of (c). (e) No fly aggregation was observed on colored agar. (f) A significant preference for carcasses (mean ± s.e.m.) was observed (*P = 0.0112) as compared to colored agar, using paired t-test. (g) Adult flies can only feed on cut/injured carcasses. Quantification of flies starved for 24 hours and exposed to cut or uncut carcasses of conspecific larvae. After continuously feeding for 48 hours, the number of survivors was counted. Equal number of starved flies with no access to any kind of food source served as the negative control. Data represents average of three independent experiments. Degree of variance amongst the three populations (i.e. cut, uncut and control) was evaluated by one-way ANOVA test for males and females separately. The statistics thus obtained were P = 0.0001, P = 0.0043 and F = 101.1, F = 15.43 for females and males, respectively.