Fruit Flies are Social Butterflies

A Moment of Science · Feb 5, 2026 · 2m

There’s rarely just one fruit fly hovering over the browning bananas in your fruit bowl. That’s because fruit flies are social creatures, spending most of their time together in groups.

Scientists have noted that other social animals, including humans, tend to eat more and sleep less when isolated. To help understand these observations, a group of scientists decided to study fruit flies to find out what’s going on in their brains when they’re socially isolated.

They found that putting fruit flies in smaller groups didn’t change their behavior; even flies isolated in groups of two acted the…