THE SECRET OF THE STALK-EYED FLIES
BY YANG SOO AH
Do you know the theory of natural selection? Natural selection, Darwin argued, is theorized that individuals in the same herd have various mutations of genes and some individual that are fully adapted to nature leave more offspring than others. This theory is recognized in the current world, and it is estimated that almost every living thing follows this theory. Among the animals that follow the theory of natural selection, there is the stalk-eyed fy. Why does this insect look like this? The answer is genes.
The reason why this fy is different from the other fies is because of its eyestalk. There is an eye at the end of the eyestalk, and the brain is in the eyestalk itself. The odd thing is that the females usually choose to have offspring with the males that have longer eyestalks. But why did they evolve like this? The answer is that some fies that have shorter eyestalks have abnormal genes compared with the fies that have longer eyestalks. In fact, males with short eyestalks do not have enough essential genes for breeding. Because of this, all of their offspring are females. That is, shorter eyestalks are the beginning of extinction for the stalk-eyed fy. Because of this problematic genetic feature, the selection of eyestalk length has become most crucial feature in reproduction for the stalk-eyed fies.
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