Editing Halteres (section)

===Visual-motor integration===

Flies rely on both visual information from their compound eyes and mechanical input from their halteres. Sherman and Dickinson (2002) discovered that the responsiveness of the halteres and eyes are tuned to complementary speeds of rotation. Responses to body rotations detected via the visual system are greatest at slow speeds and decrease with increased angular velocity. In contrast, body rotations detected by the halteres elicit the greatest responses at higher angular velocities and degrade as the speed of rotation decreases. The integration of these two separately tuned sensors allows the flies to detect a wide range of angular velocities in all three directions of rotation.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Sherman|first1=A|last2=Dickinson|first2=MH|title=A comparison of visual and haltere-mediated equilibrium reflexes in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster |journal=The Journal of Experimental Biology|date=January 2003|volume=206|issue=Pt 2|pages=295–302|pmid=12477899|doi=10.1242/jeb.00075|doi-access=free}}</ref>

Two main aspects of the visual field have been used to study fly vision, [[Figure–ground (perception)|figure and background]]. Figures are the objects that the fly is focused on and background represents everything else. When haltere bulbs are removed from tethered flying flies, they are still able to track moving figures, but they struggle to stabilize moving backgrounds. If a static figure is placed in the field of view of a fly, its ability to stabilize a moving background is restored.<ref name="Mureli 2015">{{cite journal|last1=Mureli|first1=S.|last2=Fox|first2=J. L.|title=Haltere mechanosensory influence on tethered flight behavior in Drosophila|journal=Journal of Experimental Biology|date=25 June 2015|volume=218|issue=16|pages=2528–2537|doi=10.1242/jeb.121863|pmid=26113141|doi-access=free}}</ref> This indicates that although halteres are not required for motion vision processing, they do contribute to it in a context-dependent manner, even when the behavior is separated from body rotations. Context determines whether the fly will use its halteres or vision as the primary source of body/head position information.<ref name="Hall 2015" />