Male-female behavior patterns in the flesh fly, Sarcophaga crassipalpis

Most organisms show a difference in behavior based upon sex. The flesh fly, Sarcophaga crassipalpis, is an organism in which the male displays territorial tendencies whereas the female apparently don’t (Paquette et al 2008). Furthermore, it is the male fly which initiates and drives the act of mating after reaching sexual maturity at day 3 after eclosion (paper in preparation). The behavioral patterns and ontogeny of behavior have been studied in pairs of naive male flesh flies placed in an arena together (Paquette et al.  2008; manuscript in preparation) and similarly pairs of naive females. Males have an ontogeny of aggressive behavior patterns, whilst females don’t. This study compares the differences in the behavioral patterns and ontogeny of behavior patterns in naive male-female flesh flies to that of male-male and female-female flesh flies studied under the same conditions. We test the hypotheses that males flies use the aggressive behaviors as part of the mating process, that there are new behavioral patterns displayed, and that the levels of aggression towards the female change with age of the males associated with sexual activity.