Musca domestica: Carnivore or Sweet Tooth?

Overview

Objectives/Goals My project is on the species Musca domestica, (more commonly known as the housefly), and I am testing to see which product will attract the most houseflies: meat, sugar water, or plain water. My hypothesis was that the houseflies would be attracted to the meat more than the plain water or sugar water. Methods/Materials Approximately 100 Musca domestica (housefly) pupae were placed in a large clear plastic container. This was connected via tubes to three other plastic containers. The containers had either hamburger meat, sugar water solution, or plain water in them. At regular intervals the number of flies in each container was counted. Results My hypothesis was that the houseflies would be attracted to the meat more than the plain water or sugar water. My result was meat: 49%, plain water: 8%, and sugar water; 43%. Conclusions/Discussion I proved my hypothesis because more houseflies visited the meat container than the sugar water or plain water containers. If houseflies only entered containers at random, I would expect them to go in evenly (33 percent), but this did not happen. If only boy houseflies liked sugar water, and only girl houseflies liked meat, I would expect that they would go into the containers equally, but more houseflies went into the meat container.

Competition history

• CSEF 2010 Zoology · Entry J2411

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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