SUMMARY As in most invertebrate microvillar photoreceptors, phototransduction in Drosophila melanogaster uses a G-protein-coupled phosphoinositide pathway, whereby hydrolysis of phosphatidyl inositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PIP2) by phospholipase C generates inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (InsP3) and diacyl glycerol (DAG), leading to activation of two classes of Ca2+-permeable light-sensitive channel, encoded by the trp and trpl genes. In some invertebrate photoreceptors, excitation is mediated by release of Ca2+ from intracellular stores by InsP3; however, in Drosophila melanogaster, recent evidence suggests instead that a lipid messenger, such as DAG, its metabolites and/or the reduction in PIP2 levels, may mediate excitation. Like vertebrate rods, Drosophila melanogaster photoreceptors generate quantum bumps in response to single photons, but their kinetics is approximately 10–100 times faster, and this reflects a fundamentally different strategy incorporating a threshold, positive and negative feedback by Ca2+ acting downstream of phospholipase C and a refractory period.