Almost every fruit bowl in every home has one or two bothersome fruit fly visitors. Fruit flies have been minor annoyances to humans for thousands of years feeding on the food wasted by humans. They followed nomadic people as they spread out of Africa 10,000 years ago and thrived in Europe, when humans planted orchards and vineyards to make cider and wine. And, as people continued to explore the world, fruit flies stowed away on our ships, living on supplies of wine and fruit, spreading to the New World and beyond. However, few people know that fruit flies have stowaways of their own — viruses. By studying these viruses and their association with fruit flies, biologists hope to improve our understanding of how viruses, which are a major cause of global disease, can spread around the world.

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