For Flies, Love has a very Special Smell

28 Mar 2007

IMP-researchers in the team of Barry Dickson were able to show that flies process sex pheromones in a unique way. Unlike other odours, those volatile pheromones are detected by a single class of olfactory neurons and have different and very specific effects on the mating behaviour of males and females. The discoveries are published in the current issue of the journal Nature.