Speaking up for the annoying fruit fly

By Andreas Prokop, Professor of Cellular and Developmental Neurobiology, University of Manchester

Fruit flies can be truly annoying when they are buzzing around your living room or landing in your wine. But we have much to thank these tiny nuisances for – they revolutionised biological and medical science.

Flies and mosquitoes both belong to Diptera, the group of insects that have only two wings (from the Greek di meaning two and pteron meaning wing). However, just as most people accept the bothersome as well as the positive traits of their friends, we shouldn’t judge flies for their negative…

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