Correlative studies on mating speed and metric traits in Drosophila malerkotliana.

ABSTRACT

Relationship between mating speed, an important component of fitness, and morphological characters such as lengths of wing, femur, tibia and first tarsus have been analysed in D. malerkotliana. Flies mating first have longer wings and forelegs and mating flies have lower coefficient of variability in wing length than nonmating ones. Age seems to have no detectable effect on the relationship between these metric traits and mating speed.