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April 16, 2008

Sensory navigation of the fruit fly

A fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster is tethered to a thin steel rod, where it adopts a flight posture, tucking in its legs and beating its wings. Suspending the fly in a virtual reality arena, wing motions are tracked optically and used to control an electronic wrap-around display so that the fly can effectively steer through its visual surroundings as if in free-flight.

[Research supported by U.S. National Science Foundation grant IOS 0718325.] (Date of Image: 2003)

Credit: Mark Frye, UCLA


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