Definition of "fruit fly" []

• Any of various small flies of the family Drosophilidae, having larvae that feed on ripening or fermenting fruits and vegetables, especially the common species Drosophila melanogaster often used in genetic research. Also called pomace fly, vinegar fly. (noun)
• Any of various flies of the family Tephritidae, having larvae that hatch in and damage plant tissue. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The spooky dreams took a step toward reality in the 1990s when the Swiss biologist Walter Gehring isolated the corresponding gene from the fruit fly that was known to affect the development of eyes in vertebrates."
• "One of the first homeotic fruit fly genes sequenced, in fact, coded for a protein that resembled the bacterial repressor protein that Jacob and Monod studied in the 1960s2"