Effect of electric fields on the behavior of Drosophila melanogaster Meig.

A constant and alternating electric field causes in fruit flies (Drosophila), placed between the plates of a capacitor, a cessation of movements. The percent of fruit flies reacting to the field is directly proportional to the field strength and inversely proportional to the humidity and, apparently, to the infrasonic background, is maximum at a frequency of variations of the field of 10 Hz, and does not depend on the polarity of the capacitor plates, contact of the fruit flies with them, ionization and electrical conductivity of the air, atmospheric discharges, atmospheric pressure or disturbance of the geomagnetic field. The reaction is absent in the winter. It is suggested that the fruit flies perceive the mechanical forces occurring when the body's charge interacts with the external field.