How many flies live and why do they rub their paws

It would seem that it is easier to answer such questions, but when we find out the answer to one of them, we strive to find out something else new and interesting - that’s how human nature works. And even starting to write a text about how many flies live, the author still does not know where it will take you, dear readers, to the process of cognition.

First, let’s present a photo of our today's heroine and give her a brief biological reference.

Attention! All of the facts below will apply to an ordinary housefly!

general information

Age

We start the story with the question put in the heading, find out how long an ordinary fly lives.

In fact, flies do not live very long, their average lifespan is from those to four weeks. If the temperature is kept at a level of 20-25 degrees and there is enough food, then some individuals can not die within two months.

On a note! We are talking, of course, about the imago - an adult insect!

Weight

Many people care about the body weight of this insect, so the second question we will answer is how much the fly weighs.

According to many sources of information, in order to gain a whole gram, you will need to catch at least 70 adults. Thus, the weight of each of them will be equal to an average of 14.29 milligrams.

However, if it discards external factors and allows flies to breed freely, then the offspring of one female can be about 75 tons per year!

About nutrition

To the question of what the flies eat, the answer is simple - almost everything that has an organic basis. However, they are gourmets and prefer sweets.

They eat liquid food most easily, because the fly’s mouth is a proboscis, unable to gnaw food. When flies have to be content with solid organics, they first soften it with saliva, and then absorb it.

Interesting! The taste buds of the fly are on its feet, therefore, crawling over the products, the fly tastes them that way.

About limbs

The legs of insects also cause many questions, starting with the most naive one, how many legs a fly has and ending with quite serious and interesting ones. The fact that a fly, like other insects has six legs, is taught back in school, but the question of why flies rub their paws posed by a curious child can confuse more than one dad.

It turns out this is a standard hygiene procedure. Flies, flying from sewage to food, pick up a variety of garbage on their legs and, of course, get dirty. Here, in order to clean the paws of dirt adhering to them, the flies wipe their paws one on top of the other, and thus are cleaned. First, they rub the forelimbs, then they themselves clean the head, and then the hind wings.

Now to the question of how the fly hangs on the ceiling.

Many authors believe that insects cling to the smallest protrusions of the surface with barely visible simple eyes hooks on their legs. But this is the wrong point of view, how else to explain the tenacity of flies on perfectly smooth surfaces, for example, glasses.

It turns out that this phenomenon has a very simple explanation.The fact is that the protrusions on the legs of the fly are not hooks at all, but the smallest capillaries. Through them, insects secrete a kind of sticky liquid on the surface, which then holds their light body on a vertical or horizontal surface.

If a fly decides to start from a ceiling or wall perpendicular to the surface, like a rocket, then the tensile force formed by this adhesive composition will not allow them to do this. Therefore, insects are forced to fly along a tangent, similar to an intercontinental airliner.

About brains

Now let's think about this topic: does the fly have a brain. It would seem why he is such a small creature. However, in the head of an insect there are about three hundred thousand neurons, which, of course, is nothing compared to our twenty billion such cells, but still ...

This amount of active cells is enough for a small creature to actively work and fulfill its most urgent needs.

About the eyes

Looking at the eyes of a fly, many are interested in their eyesight. In fact, we do not see the usual proteins and pupils inherent in mammals, and often we can not understand how the fly sees.

In fact, they, like many other insects, have the so-called “facet” vision. The eye is made up of many tiny sectors. each of which is responsible for displaying a small area of ​​space. Then, the tiny fly brain, discussed in the previous chapter, connects pieces of information together, and the fly presents the whole picture surrounding it.

Such an arrangement of the eyes allows the fly to see the picture 360 ​​degrees, moreover, in a color image. And the optimal frame change for her is not 24 per second, like a person’s, but as many as 300.

Oh heart

Does the fly have a heart, and in what egg is that needle hidden that will kill her as the famous Koshchei?

In this sense, as in humans, flies are heartless. But still, the organ that moves their blood through a single direct artery also exists in these insects.

This phenomenon is explained by the fact that, unlike mammals, the blood of insects does not carry out the function of oxygen delivery to the most important parts of the body. Roughly speaking, flies breathe skin, not lungs.

About Mushin's Dream

An interesting question is whether flies sleep, shocked even scientists. Regardless of the structure of the brain, insects are also forced to rest. Moreover, it has been found that young flies that have just hatched from a pupa sleep harder and longer than their relatives who have lived a couple of weeks. Tests have even shown that coffee acts on these insects as encouraging as it does on humans due to its antihistamine properties.

Generation, or life cycle

Now let's talk about the development of a fly from a scientific point of view. The life cycle of a fly follows the path of complete transformation of insects.

Attention! The full development cycle of insects includes four stages: an egg, a larva, a chrysalis and an imago!

Egg

Flies can lay up to one hundred and fifty eggs at a time. During its short life, the female is able to make more than six egg-laying. It is also interesting how the flies lay their eggs. They are able to put them in any food that has started to deteriorate, so it is so important to monitor the accumulation of garbage and remove it from the apartment in a timely manner.

The eggs of a fly are very difficult to make out, since they have a size of less than one millimeter.

Larvae

The eggs are incubated very quickly, literally the next day small larvae appear - maggots. From an egg, they appear very tiny, but in the process of development they can grow more than eight hundred times.

The entire process of development of maggots lasts a little more than a week under favorable conditions: an optimum temperature of 20-25 degrees Celsius and high humidity of the air and substrate in which they develop.

Maggots are highly sought after by fishing enthusiasts, but they are small near a housefly and are poorly suited for hooking. Usually other types of flies, the so-called meat flies, provide bait.

Dolls

The next stage in the development of the fly is the pupa.The larva stops eating and builds up body mass and size and gradually pupates. Anglers call the pupated maggot caster and also used for bait.

Caster is similar to a larva, only has a harder shell and a brownish body color. At this stage of development, the fly also spends about one week.

Our help! At low temperatures, the fly larva is not able to pupate. Therefore, fishing maggot in the refrigerator can be stored for six months or more.

Imago

One week after pupation, the last stage of how the flies appear. As mentioned earlier, adults live on average about twenty-four days, and almost every two or three days they are able to lay eggs. So these same 75 tons a year turn out!

Wintering

Everyone probably wondered where the flies came from in the spring. The fact is that with the onset of autumn cold these insects are able to fall into suspended animation and spend in this state without damage to health for five to six months.

On a note! In suspended animation, pupae and larvae of flies are able to tolerate cold.

Do flies bite?

People often say that with the onset of autumn cold, usually peaceful house flies become extremely bite and cause a lot of concern. It turns out that a completely different species of these insects flies into our homes - the autumn lighter. In summer, this creature lives in fields and meadows, eating the blood of domestic and wild animals, and the cold drive it to our warm homes.

So do not sin on the housefly, the guilt in the bites of an externally biting lighter similar to it.

Here she is - our acquaintance and such an interesting housefly. And to consolidate the material, watch the video report on how a fly is born. An interesting video shows the process of turning an insect from a pupa into an adult.