About Drosophila melanogaster

Drosophila melanogaster is a cosmopolitan species of fruitfly that has been used as a model organism for over a hundred years, particularly with respect to genetics and developmental biology. It was the second metazoan (the first being Caenorhabditis elegans) to have its genome sequenced [1], and was one of 12 fruitfly genomes included in a large comparative study [2]. Ensembl Genomes imports data from FlyBase, who also have much more information about the biology of Drosophila melanogaster, and a phylogeny of the 12 sequenced fruitfly species.

Picture credit (Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.0 FR): Nicolas Gompel 2008. Image shows a female fly.

Taxonomy ID 7227

Data source FlyBase

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