The ontogeny of sex appeal in Drosophila melanogaster males

Drosophila melanogaster males are sexually attractive when they are young, but they elicit very little courtship when they are 2-3 days old. We have shown that males from a Canton-S stock start to lose their sex appeal between 3 and 4 h after they eclose from their pupal cases because they have begun to synthesize cis-vaccenyl acetate, an inhibitory pheromone, by that time. Later, when the young males are between 20 and 24 h old, mature males perform even less courtship because the young males have begun to produce less of a courtship-stimulating pheromone.