What happens there? Just a moment ago the brat was a communicative, almost chattering bundle of energy, now the movement-resistant teenager squatting in his room can only get one-word sentences out at best. “Closed for renovation” seems to be written on the pimply forehead of the ex-child who is growing and changing somehow and everywhere.
“I know,” says the fruit fly pityingly to me, who just had to watch one of those absurd arguments between father and child for a few minutes more or less time to dally through her compound eyes.
“What do you know about puberty,” I mumble in frustration, sipping my wheat beer.
“When my offspring pupate, there’s nothing more we can do with them.”
“That’s something completely different, your metamorphosis and our puberty.”
“Read ‘Mammalian Puberty: A Fly’s Perspective‘ by Juan Guirado et al.’ says Drosophila and disappears into my beer bottle.
In fact, it states that “mammalian puberty and Drosophila metamorphosis share similar principles of construction, despite their evolutionary distance.” It is even possible to trigger the pupation process in fruit fly larvae with the human hormone leptin, which plays a crucial role in the onset of puberty. Leptin was able to help larvae, which can no longer pupate due to mutations, to metamorphose.
Despite an evolutionary distance of more than 500 million years between mammals and insects, nature partly uses the same genes and hormones, albeit adapted to puberty and metamorphosis, in order to equip the offspring with the organs they need for adult life.
So the child is pupating? It is perhaps very comforting not to think of puberty as a long, seemingly never-ending process for some people, but rather as a swift metamorphosis, after which a communicative, prudent, empathetic, just beautiful butterfly hatches.
“Hey, or a beautiful bow tie,” says the fly.
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