a question about flies?

Question

how can you tell the difference between a female fly and a male fly?...........if you don't know try to answer this question.......are they both male and female?

Answer 1

Structurally they are almost identical. Typically the females are always larger, that is because they must carry eggs with them, however this trick only works when you have both of them in front of you and they are from the same species.
Males typcially have tiny claspers on the forelegs, these are used for holding or stimulating the female during copulation, this however also depends on species.
One of the other answers above me shows the difference between fruit flies (Drosphila) this is easily seen, but once again both have to be 2mm apart in order for you to see the difference.

The internal structures are very different however, the male genetalia is very complex compared to the female's. This can only be seen under a high powered microscope.

The differences are very hard to notice with the naked eye, so it is difficult to sex flies just by looking at one individual.

Hope this answers your question!

Answer 2

Female flies are generally larger than males flies. Also their abdomens look different.

Its been awhile since genetics lab, so I dont recall specifically.

I did find this though....

It is quite easy to tell males from females and with a little practice students . Notice that males are generally smaller and have a darker and more rounded abdomen. The coloration of the abdomen is the easiest to recognize. In addition, males have tarsal sex combs on their first pair of legs. These are black and very distinctive but can only be seen under relatively high magnification. With a little practice, by looking at the abdomen will become proficient in accurately sexing flies.

Answer 3

There are distinct sexes of all flies. For the fruit fly it's pretty easy to distinguish the sexes. The top images of the link below have a couple nice pictures and drawings.

If you do an image search, it's easy to find pictures that distinguish male from female fruit flies. For other flies, there would be distinct sexes, but I can't find an image for house flies, for example...

Answer 4

The better question is at what point does the fly flip upside down before landing on the ceiling?

Answer 5

depends on the fly, but for Dropsphilia melanogaster (the common fruit fly and study of many genetics classes) you count the number of segments on the back section.