Fig. 5

Effect of fly sex and age on the frequency (Hz) of wing-reflected light flashes and their effects on attraction of males. a Numbers of light flashes per second reflected off the wings of free-flying 2-day-old (young) and 7-day-old (old) female and male Lucilia sericata; n indicates the number of flies analyzed in each category; different letter superscript on bars indicate significant differences in light flash frequencies based on the age and sex of flies (ANOVA followed by the Tukey test for comparisons of means). b Alighting responses by L. sericata males on paired black acrylic spheres (Fig. 1e) each holding a white-light LED that emitted either constant light or light pulsed at a frequency of 290 Hz (Exp. 5), 250 Hz (Exp. 6), 178 Hz (Exp. 7), or 110 Hz (Exp. 8); the asterisk in Experiments 6 and 7 indicates a significant preference for the specific pulsed light stimulus (t-test); different letter superscripts on bars indicate significant differences in alighting responses based on the frequency of pulsed light (one-way ANOVA followed by the Tukey test for comparisons of means)