I have started doing experiments with the transparent T-maze, but I have some problems. The results are really weird: I have obtained negative phototaxis for both flies with intact and clipped wings (phototaxis is more negative for flies with intact wings????).

I did only 9 experiments, because I don’t really know how to run them and I need advice. I am going to explain how I was doing this experiments until now:

– First of all, I put the flies in the entrance tube of the T-maze (upper part) and I cover the T-maze with a black clothing (I want the flies to be adapted to the darkness, like in my last experiments with the opaque T-maze). They are in this situation for 10min.

– After that I push the flies into the elevator. I don’t know if I should let them stay there for 1 minute (like I was doing before with the opaque T-maze, or push them to the bottom of the T-maze to let them make their decision between darkness or light without an adaptation time.

I think that if they stay in the elevator for 1 minute, they will be again under light conditions, and that’s not good for the experiment. I could cover again the T-maze with the black clothing during this minute (that’s what I was doing until now, but with bad results).

– Then I let the flies decide for 30 seconds as always.

So if you have any suggestions, I will be glad to hear them :)