Flies key to evolution study
Sociable mums make much better mothers than less gregarious ones, suggests a new study of baboons. Baby baboons born to outgoing mums who enjoy hanging out with other females are considerably more likely to survive their crucial first year than infants born to less friendly mothers, reveals the behavioural study.
Flies have been around for at least 250 million years, surviving global warming and freezing and major "extinction events" such as that which wiped out the dinosaurs. Yet we know surprisingly little about this constant and frequently irritating companion to man and animal life. In an attempt to rectify this, Australian scientists have joined a global effort to map the genetic structure and evolutionary history of the fly which could also entail a major rethink of Darwinian principles. One of them, David Yeates, an entomologist, describes the task as "an incredibly important project considering flies comprise about 10 percent of animal life forms on the planet."