title: Instability helps virtual flies to mate.
abstract: In this paper we perform a bifurcation analysis for a discrete time dynamical system, describing the behavior of a virtual fly, developed by Böddeker and Egelhaaf (2003). Like real blowflies, the virtual counterparts exhibit a dichotomous behavior: they catch small targets but follow big objects at a constant distance. We consider this model for targets on linear and on circular trajectories. Then we transform the system into a ''frozen'' form, such that the position of the target is fixed. It turns out that the loss of stability of a fixed point in the frozen system due to a Neimark-Sacker bifurcation, explains the dichotomous behavior of the virtual fly.
authors.affiliation: Fakultät für Mathematik, Universität Bielefeld, Germany. huels@math.uni-bielefeld.de
authors.forename: Thorsten
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hüls
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004175:Diptera / Q000502:physiology*; D005426:Flight, Animal; D008954:Models, Biological; D012726:Sexual Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*