Locomotor activity of the blowfly as a function of feeding and starvation

Abstract The effect of feeding and starvation on locomotor activity in Phormia regina Meigen was studied. It was found that flies fed glucose, fucose, or mannose were much less active than were flies that had been starved for 24 hr. Immediately after feeding flies were less active than at any other time, but activity increased progressively thereafter. Metabolic state and blood sugar concentration were shown not to be determinants of activity; nor was the mechanism involved in the control of activity identical with that by which feeding and starvation control taste threshold. Evidence was given that locomotor activity is some function of crop volume and hence, perhaps, of the rate of crop emptying. Injections greatly decreased activity, partly by means of a wound factor type of action.