gus^Z409 ovaries produce only about 3% as many eggs as wild-type, and these eggs are fragile, have short or fused dorsal appendages or lack them altogether, and are never fertilized. As early as stage 8-9, the oocytes in these mutants are much smaller than wild-type oocytes of the same stage. In addition, the oocyte nucleus is often associated with ectopic particles that stain brightly with rhodamine-phalloidin. Nearly half the eggs laid by gus^Z409 heterozygotes fail to hatch, and about 30% of the eggs show a wide range of dorsal appendage defects, including appendages shorter and broader than wild type, fully fused appendages, partially fused forked appendages, or a lack of appendages altogether. About 25% of the embryos produced from gus^Z409/+ mother fail to progress to cuticle formation, and about 10% of the cuticles exhibit posterior patterning defects. These defects include deletions of one or two metameric units as assessed by counting denticle belts. Most often the extent of the deletions varies along the dorsal-ventral axis so that portions of adjacent segments become fused.