Gender-bending boy fruit flies fight like girls.
There is a gene in fruit flies known for its role in male courtship which also controls another sex-specific behavior—how flies fight. The researchers swapped the male and female versions of the gene in fruit flies and observed the consequences. Females with the masculine gene used male fighting tactics, while the males with the feminine gene fought like the girls. Oddly enough, the gene switch also caused them to use the word “fabulous” a lot and throw a baseball off their back feet.
My favorite part of the article was about how when one researcher accidentally crushed a female’s head (I crrrush your head!!”), the males would court the dead, headless female fly, and try to copulate with her sometimes. This, of course, is easily observable in humans by attending a frat party on any college campus. Because there’s no hotter sex than sex with a passed-out co-ed.
Or a deer carcass near the edge of the road.
Wait a minute, Craig. They’re male fruit flies. Aren’t they already extremely fashionable dressers and neat housekeepers?
(Cue Sully meltdown in three… two… one…)
My wife and I went to Costa Rica a couple years back and walked through a butterfly enclosure (it was pretty cool, my wife loved it and I got points for being sensitive…. first time for everything…)
So we come across the guided tour where the guide is telling an all female group that when a female butterfly is struggling out of her pupal state, the males will often copulate with her even as she fights to get free…. so all the women turn and give me looks that would kill. I suppose that blurting out that to me, the little tart was asking for it, was ummmmmm… ill timed.
My wife was solidly on my side (because english is her second language)