TY - JOUR T1 - The scent of the fly JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/206375 SP - 206375 AU - Paul G. Becher AU - Sebastien Lebreton AU - Erika A. Wallin AU - Erik Hedenström AU - Felipe Borrero AU - Marie Bengtsson AU - Volker Jörger AU - Peter Witzgall Y1 - 2018/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/04/01/206375.abstract N2 - (Z)-4-undecenal (Z4-11Al) is the volatile pheromone produced by females of the vinegar fly Drosophila melanogaster. Female flies emit Z4-11Al for species-specific communication and mate-finding. A sensory panel finds that synthetic Z4-11Al has a characteristic flavour, which we perceive even at the small amounts produced by one female fly. Since only females produce Z4-11Al, and not males, we can reliably distinguish between single D. melanogaster males and females, according to their scent. Females release Z4-11Al at 2.4 ng/h and we readily sense 1 ng synthetic Z4-11Al in a glass of wine (0.03 nmol/L), while a tenfold concentration is perceived as a loud off-flavour. This corroborates the observation that a glass of wine is spoilt by a single D. melanogaster fly falling into it, which we here show is caused by Z4-11Al. The biological role of Z4-11Al or structurally related aldehydes in humans and the basis for this semiochemical convergence remains yet unclear. ER -