Nüsslein-Volhard and Wieschaus used Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism in genetic screens to examine developmental biology. Why was Drosophila a good model organism for this study?
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Drosophila was a well-established model system about which much was known. This included well-established embryology that allowed the segmentation pattern of embyros to act as the screening phenotype. Drosophila has a short generation time, meaning that many embryos can be generated and studied efficiently. Balancer chromosomes are available in Drosophila, which facilitates the maintenance of lethal mutations in a heterozygote. Haploids in Drosophila cannot survive, so this is not a feature of this model system. In addition, although experiments in Drosophila that use eye color as a marker are common, this was not a factor in the developmental screens here.

Nüsslein-Volhard and Wieschaus Used Drosophila Melanogaster as a Model Organism