Fig. 2: Newly identified potential sex pheromones.

a Representative gas chromatograms of virgin male (♂), and virgin (v♀), and mated (m♀) female flies obtained by solvent-free thermal desorption-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (TD-GC-MS)⁵¹. Five replicates or more of each sex were analyzed, yielding more than 580, 520, and 500 replicates of males, and virgin and mated females of all 99 species, respectively. Left panel, example of a monomorphic species, whose males exhibit a chemical profile identical to that of virgin and mated females. Right panel, example of a dimorphic species that displays sexually dimorphic profiles. Colored peaks indicate male-specific compounds (green, compounds transferred to females during mating; red, non-transferred compounds). Drawings made by Mohammed A. Khallaf. b Distribution of 43 male-specific compounds among different drosophilids; 81 species are dimorphic species (in black), while 18 species (in grey) are monomorphic species. Phylogeny on the left side is identical to the tree in Fig. 1a; the branches are colored according to group identities. Numbers on the right side represent the sum of male-specific compounds present per species, while numbers at the bottom of the table represent number of times each male-specific compound appeared in the different species. Cell colors refer to transferred (green) and non-transferred (red) compounds. See Supplementary Fig. 2 for female-specific compounds. c Chemical structures and names of the male-specific compounds according to the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). Out of 43 male-specific compounds, 40 compounds were chemically identified. Compound size ranges between 10 to 32 carbon atoms, with 23 esters, 4 ketones, 8 alkenes, 2 terpenes, 1 ether, and 1 alcohol. See Supplementary Data 3 for Kovat’s Index, chemical formula, exact mass, mass spectrum (M/Z), and boiling temperature of these compounds.