The interaction of taste and heat on the biting response of the tsetse fly Glossina fuscipes fuscipes

Abstract

Abstract.Tsetse flies probe more on a heated surface with a trace of uric acid than on one without. Uric acid is one of the components of human sweat and it elicits spike responses from taste hairs on the flies' legs. In this paper it is examined how heat from the surface and taste interact to affect the biting behaviour of Glossina fuscipes fuscipes Newstead 1910 (Diptera: Glossinidae) over successive days of food deprivation. The biting behaviour consists of bouts of probing, both ambulatory and stationary, intercalated with short hops of flight. The number of bouts increases over successive days, whereas the average bout duration does not. Although uric acid alone could not induce the flies to probe, in combination with surface heat it affected the flies greatly. Average bout duration was two‐fold that on a heated surface not treated with uric acid. The frequency of bouts was not affected by uric acid. These experiments and auxiliary ones on mechanoreceptive input and odours lead to the insight that the factors which affect biting behaviour can be viewed as a hierarchy. The hierarchy extends from those that affect the onset of biting to those that affect its course.