Halteres, (singular halter or haltere) from the Greek word for dumbbells, are small knobbed structures homologous to wings and flapped to maintain stability when flying. These specialized organs are found in the place of the forewings of Strepsiptera and the hindwings of Diptera. They act as a balancing and guidance system, helping flies to perform their fast aerial acrobatics. They play an important role in stabilising the gaze of insects during flight and also provide rapid feedback to wing-steering muscles to stabilise aerodynamic force moments.
Halteres are, in fact, the oldest known type of Vibrating structure gyroscope, providing flying insects with the equivalent of an aircraft Attitude indicator. The human organs of balance are notoriously ill-suited for acrobatic maneuvers, which is why most of us become dizzy when we attempt them, and human acrobats must learn to ignore input from their middle ears while performing.
In ancient Greek sports, halteres were used as lifting weights, and also as weights in their form of the long jump. Their long jump was probably a set of three jumps, and halteres were held in both hands to allow an athlete to jump a greater distance. They may have been dropped after the first or second jump.
Halteres are sophisticated equilibrium organs of flies that function to detect angular rotations of the body during flight.
Both the size of the EPSP and the activity pattern in the haltere nerve were sensitive to the precise alignment of the plane in which the haltere was oscillated, indicating that the campaniform sensilla were quite sensitive to the direction of cuticular strain.
The delay between haltere nerve stimulation and the mnb1 EPSP is comparable to the delay between the extracellularly recorded spike in the haltere nerve and the unitary EPSP in mnb1 in response to mechanical stimulation of a single campaniform in dF2.
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