Design and Mate Flies

Important Notice! We have established several mirror servers. You can now access Virtual FlyLab from the following locations:
Los Angeles, CA:	http://vearthquake.calstatela.edu/
Sonoma, CA:	http://cdl-flylab.sonoma.edu/
Los Angeles, CA:	http://vquake.calstatela.edu/
Los Angeles, CA:	http://vflylab.calstatela.edu/
Sydney, Australia:	http://vflylab.angis.org.au/
Please bookmark these locations in the event that the server you are trying to access is slow or does not respond. Thank you.

Instructions

Traits are organized into groups such as "bristles" and "body colors." Within each group a trait can be specified for either the male or the female. If one of the parents has a mutation, then the other parent must be wild type. Virtual FlyLab restricts you to selecting one mutation from each group. (These are software restrictions, not ones imposed by nature!)

There are two steps:

Use the radio buttons to choose a combination of genetic traits for the parent flies. Wild type is the default, which represents a normal fly.
Click the button labelled "Mate Flies" to perform the cross.

IMPORTANT! You need to know the following rules in order to analyze your crosses:

If no mutation within a group is selected, both flies will be homozygous for the wild type alleles for all the mutations within that group.
If you select a mutation and the mutation is not lethal, the male or female fly is made homozygous for the selected mutation. All the other traits within that group will be homozygous for the wild type allele.
If you select a mutation within a group and the mutation is lethal, the fly is made heterozygous for that mutation. (A homozygous fly would be dead!)
If you select two lethal mutations which are in the same linkage group, then the mutant alleles will be placed on different homologous chromosomes; this is called the "trans" arrangement.
If you select three or more lethal mutations in the same linkage group, Virtual FlyLab will divide the alleles as evenly as possible between the two homologous chromosomes.

It is best to focus on one or two traits at a time; otherwise things can get very complicated. In fact, if you choose too many traits at the same time, you may get an error message. This is because the number of different offspring combinations that would be produced could be very large and it would be impractical to return that many flies. Remember, the goal is to learn something about the rules of genetic inheritance!

Bristle Mutations

Default:	female wild type and male wild type
Male wild type and female:	forked	shaven	singed	spineless	stubble
Female wild type and male:	forked	shaven	singed	spineless	stubble

Body Color Mutations

Default:	female wild type and male wild type
Male wild type and female:	black	ebony	sable	tan	yellow
Female wild type and male:	black	ebony	sable	tan	yellow

Antennae Mutations

Default:	female wild type and male wild type
Male wild type and female:	aristapedia
Female wild type and male:	aristapedia

Eye Color Mutations

Default:	female wild type and male wild type
Male wild type and female:	brown	purple	sepia	white
Female wild type and male:	brown	purple	sepia	white

Eye Shape Mutations

Default:	female wild type and male wild type
Male wild type and female:	bar	eyeless	lobe	star
Female wild type and male:	bar	eyeless	lobe	star

Wing Size Mutations

Default:	female wild type and male wild type
Male wild type and female:	apterous	miniature	vestigial
Female wild type and male:	apterous	miniature	vestigial

Wing Shape Mutations

Default:	female wild type and male wild type
Male wild type and female:	curly	curved	dumpy	scalloped
Female wild type and male:	curly	curved	dumpy	scalloped

Wing Vein Mutations

Default:	female wild type and male wild type
Male wild type and female:	crossveinless	incomplete
Female wild type and male:	crossveinless	incomplete

Wing Angle Mutations

Default:	female wild type and male wild type
Male wild type and female:	dichaete
Female wild type and male:	dichaete

Possible Actions

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