Visual learning in walking blowflies,Lucilia cuprina

Abstract

Summary The Australian sheep blowfliesLucilia cuprina were trained by presenting droplets of sugar solution on a light spot of blue (460 nm wavelength) or green (520 nm wavelength). During the test, the searching behaviour was elicited by sugar stimulation. Then, the flies were allowed to walk in the arena where four coloured spots (two blue and two green) with light intensities similar to the training light were exhibited. Visits at these coloured spots were recorded. The flies visited preferably the light spot of the colour to which they had been trained. Next, the flies were trained to a light spot of blue or green displayed in various intensities, and later tested to discriminate between these two colours displayed in fixed intensities. The flies preferred the trained colour over the untrained one irrespective of the intensity used during training. It was only at the lowest intensity that they showed random orientation. These results suggest that the flies can learn to visit a coloured spot, and that they can discriminate between colours on the basis of wavelength rather than intensity. Training caused the flies not only to increase the probability of visiting the trained colour, but also to extend the proboscis and to elicit a characteristic searching behaviour once they had reached the coloured spot.