Itskov, P.M. et al. Nat. Commun. 5, 4560 (2014).

Ro, J. et al. PLoS One 9, e101107 (2014).

There are several methods used to monitor the feeding behavior of Drosophila melanogaster, but most are difficult to scale up, implement over long periods or quantify. Two independent groups now report setups in which they use simple electronic circuits to monitor, in an automated fashion and with high temporal resolution, the interaction of tens to thousands of fruit flies with food. Ro et al. demonstrate the power of their approach for long-term experiments by profiling fly feeding over multiple circadian cycles. Itskov et al. combine their method with sensitive measurements of bioluminescent food uptake to estimate the volume in a single fly 'sip'. Both groups validate their results by comparison to manual monitoring of proboscis extension as well as by correlation with standard approaches.