A Telegram pet running a model of all 165,122 neurons of a male fruit fly. No reaction is scripted: what happens next is up to the brain.
Free. Runs right inside Telegram, nothing to install.
Tap one: these are real neuron responses from the simulation.
The game is built on MaleCNS — the complete wiring map of a male fruit fly's nervous system, reconstructed by Janelia and Google from electron-microscope images. We brought that map to life: when you brush your fly or show it a shadow, real sensory cells fire and the signal travels through the real wiring.
neurons of the brain and nerve cord in the simulation
connections between them, as in a real fly
memory synapses, unique to each fly: they hold exactly what you taught
Feed it, give it water, put it to sleep, clean the vial. Whether to eat is the brain's call: hungry flies eat eagerly, full ones refuse, and bitter medicine only goes down when hungry.
Show a smell or an image with sugar and your fly will love it. With a shake it will fear it. Real memory cells learn, and without practice the memory slowly fades.
Nine arena trials, weekly leagues, duels with friends and 57 medals. Every trial is scored by the brain.
There are no stats to grind: every fly has the same wiring. What differs is how you raised it and how it's doing — rested or tired, hungry or full, spooked by shadows before the start or not.
Is it drawn to the tasty stalls, and does it avoid the nasty ones
How many milliseconds to jump from a shadow
How many notes it sings to a female
Can it taste the faintest sweetness
Will it turn toward a little fly on the left or right
Can it tell a free female from a taken one
How powerfully it takes off from a shadow above
How thoroughly it grooms
How far it runs after a dot
Every fly stays here with the story of its life: how long it lived, what it learned, which medals it earned.
Like a real fruit fly, yours lives about 50 days. Forget it for too long and hunger, thirst or illness will end its life — no revival, no paying your way out. But the family goes on: a successful courtship brings eggs, and an offspring lives on after it.
It's a model of a real brain. The wiring is the real MaleCNS v1.0 map; the neurons are simplified (the model by Shiu et al., Nature 2024). Every action runs about a second of simulation, and you can see which neurons responded. Where the model lacks data, the game says so with a “game rule” label.
About 50 days at 25 °C. Warmth speeds life up, cool slows it down. Going away? Send your fly on vacation and its life pauses.
Once a day is enough. Without care the water runs out in about two days, and the bot messages you in Telegram if your fly needs help — at most two messages a day, quiet at night. Going away? Send your fly on vacation.
Yes. Invite a friend with your personal link: when they start a fly, you both get 50 pollen. Friends treat each other's flies and duel, and the bot lets you know.
It can't come back, but the family goes on: a successful courtship brings eggs, and an offspring lives its own life. Every fly's story stays in the Hall of fame.
Yes. Telegram Stars buy pollen, the Lab+ subscription, vacations and decorations. You can't buy a win or your fly's life.
