This creature is very useful in genetic research for several reasons. The fruit fly's breeding skills are tremendous. A new generation can come in just a couple of weeks. And also, the matings will produce hundreds of offspring, which can aid greatly in determining the behavior of certain traits. They only have four chromosomes, which is very little considering that humans have 36 chromosomes.
Fruit flies have three pairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes.
All you need for this lab is internet access to a computer to THIS SITE, and a mind solely focused on biology. Procedure It is very important that you follow the directions given at CalState's V-fLy SiTe. But once you read all of dat shtuff . . . you can go along and mate flies. You must only choose at most two traits to deal with at one time. You should also make some punnett square to have predicted results to compare to those results you get from the computer mating.