Discuss why Drosophila has been used extensively for genetical studies.

Some reasons why Drosophila was found suitable for studies are:

• they could be grown on simple synthetic medium in the laboratory

• they complete their life cycle in about 2 weeks

• a single mating could produce a large number of progeny flies

• clear differentiation of sexes- the male and females are easily distinguishable

• many type of hereditary variations that can be seen under low power of microscope.

The above mentioned reasons help in easy growth of flies in easily available medium, short life span helps to carry out the research in short time period and fastly, availability of more progenies per mating helps to reduce the effort in developing new progeny flies each time, males are small and differently coloured than females which help the scientist to distinguish them more easily.