Mexican fruit flies wave for distraction

Announcing your presence to a prospective predator with a jaunty wave might seem like an unconventional survival strategy, but not forMexican fruit flies (Anastrepha ludens). When confronted with a ravenous bold jumping spider (Phidippus audax), the courageous little flies waggle their wings and perform some fancy footwork while raising their rear end, apparently advertising their presence. But instead of provoking an attack, the fly’s nifty wing work usually deters its opponent, with 90% of spiders hesitating and walking away. ‘Attention has usually been focused on the pigmented fraction of the wings’, says Dinesh Rao, from the Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico, explaining that the flies’ distinctive wing markings were thought to discourage their would-be assailants. But Rao and his colleagues Skye Long and Elizabeth Jakob, from the University of Massachusetts, USA, weren’t so sure, so, with an international team of collaborators, they arranged fruit fly versus jumping spider confrontations to find out whether the fruit flies’ wing manoeuvres flummox bold jumping spiders.