Mutant adults have a reduced lifespan which varies from a few hours to up to a few days. Both non-inflated wings and an upheld wing phenotype are seen. Many of the mutant adults have an uncoordinated phenotype, showing slowness and strongly diminished climbing ability compared to controls. More severely affected individuals have a "slimy" body wall and cannot stand upright, dying within a few hours of eclosion.

Mutant males have normal reproductive system morphology, but the seminal vesicles are empty. Spindle morphology and chromosome segregation during the meiotic divisions are normal and onion-stage spermatids are indistinguishable from wild type. The centrioles of primary spermatocytes are significantly longer than normal and centriole pairs sometimes show defects in their arrangement. The length of the basal body in elongated spermatids is significantly longer than normal and their flagella are immotile, thicker than normal and have cytoplasmic bulges.

Individualisation complexes (ICs) are correctly assembled at mutant spermatid nuclei, as in wild type. The ICs migrate away from the nucleus, but they appear dispersed and lagging along the sperm tails compared to wild type. The cystic bulge and waste bags are smaller than normal.

Post-elongation cysts in the mutant testis are disorganised, contain large amounts of cytoplasm and large membrane delimited non-electron dense inclusion bodies can be seen (not seen in wild type). The axonemes are well assembled (containing the 9+9+2 microtubule arrangement) in the mutant sperm in pupae and adults, but axonemes that appear slightly or completely opened are seen in 16.8% of adult cysts. 45.6% of late-elongation or individualising mutant cysts contain a few sperm tails with a reduced number of mitochondrial derivatives (two axonemes sharing a single major mitochondrial derivative is often seen).

Bug22^KO has sperm individualization complex phenotype, enhanceable by TTLL3B^Ubi.GFP