Testing Equal Amounts of Each Attractant

A very interesting difference was obtained when females bred from the last generation of the selected strains were given a choice of equal amounts of each attractant. The females from Generation 4 of the amyl alcohol strain placed 60.32% of their eggs in amyl alcohol and 39.68% in ammonium carbonate. This result is significantly different from a 50% random choice and does seem to indicate that amyl alcohol females prefer to lay their eggs in amyl alcohol. However, the ammonium carbonate page 9 females also preferred to lay their eggs in amyl alcohol, placing only 2.03% of their eggs in ammonium carbonate, and 97.97% in amyl alcohol. Yet in the selection experiment, the ammonium carbonate strain tended to a more correct choice than the amyl alcohol strain. (In Generation 4 ammonium carbonate flies chose 42.96% correctly, and amyl alcohol flies 19.59% correctly).