This species was discovered by the fly geneticist Alfred Sturtevant in 1919 , when he noticed that the flies used in Thomas Hunt Morgan 's laboratory at the Columbia University were actually two distinct species : `` D. melanogaster '' and `` D. simulans '' .
Drosophila simulans is a species of fruit fly closely related to `` D. melanogaster '' It was discovered by the fly geneticist Alfred Sturtevant in 1919 , when he noticed that the flies used in Thomas Hunt Morgan 's laboratory at the Columbia University were actually two distinct species : `` D. melanogaster '' and `` D. simulans '' .