Embryos produced from germline clones exhibit only small patches that show the contour of the cleavage furrow when cellularisation begins. The layer of nuclei begins to look disorganised, on the surface the cell pattern is irregular but cell size is normal. Cell membranes reach into the embryos and grow perpendicular to the surface, the membranes reach varying depths. The actin cytoskeleton reaches to various depths in the peripheral cytoplasm and is unevenly distributed along the membranes as it accumulates in grains instead of in straight filaments. As gastrulation begins the epithelia begins to disintegrate. The nuclei move out of the incompletely cellularised peripheral layer of cytoplasm into the inside of the egg. Embryos succeed to varying degrees to make a ventral furrow. Phenotype can be mildly rescued by paternal contribution of fliI.

Blastoderm embryos are not properly cellularised.

fliI¹⁴/fliI⁵ and fliI¹⁴/fliI³ flies are flightless.

Homozygous germline clones display maternal effect lethality. Embryos derived from heterozygous mothers are poorly differentiated. Defects are detectable soon after blastoderm formation: abnormal folds and mesoderm formation, and only patches of epidermis are present.

Progeny produced from homozygous female germ-line clones are not rescuable by normal allele of paternal origin. They show abnormal folding during gastrulation, abnormal mesoderm invagination and only patches of epidermis are present at later stages. Stronger allele than fliI²².