Everybody loves a picnic.
With that straw-like proboscis this fly is going to slurp your lunch … if you let it.
Add in a little regurgitated liquid, and it turns your burger into a shake.
It carries hundreds of types of bacteria around on its legs … and in its gut.
Think you can take it on?
A fly is a formidable opponent.
Its hairs and antennae feel the air move as you approach.
And just look at its bulging eyes. It can see you coming from nearly every angle.
Its eyes and tiny brain process information 10 times faster than ours.
To a fly, we appear downright sluggish.
In the air it’s in its element.
Check out those razor-sharp turns.
Sticks the landing.
Gone in a flash.
If you look at a fly really close up you’ll see how it does it. Check out
that club-shaped part moving back and forth, right below its wing.
It’s called a haltere. It’s what makes those athletic moves possible.
Scientists have identified 200,000 kinds of flies. They all have halteres.
“Haltere” means “dumbbell” in Greek. See that dumbbell shape on this crane fly?
Flies have two wings and a pair of halteres. The halteres actually evolved from wings.
Most other insects have four wings.
As the fly turns, its halteres sense the movement. In a split second, neurons at the base of the
halteres send information to the fly’s muscles to steer its wings and keep its head steady.
When researchers remove a fly’s halteres it can no longer control its flight.
It loses all sense of where its body is in space.
Unfortunately for you, the fly sucking on your apple is in top shape.
If it gets inside your house its halteres will help it do a fly’s signature move:
the ceiling landing.
It hangs there with tiny hooks and sticky pads on its feet.
The pads, called pulvilli, have microscopic hairs that excrete
liquid. That liquid sticks to the surface under pressure, kinda like suction.
Despite the fly’s arsenal of slick tools, next time
you go hunting, here’s one trick you can try. A fly struggles to see objects that are still.
So if you go very slowly, and then pounce, you might stand a chance.
Nice shot.
Oh good, you’re still there. It’s Laura. Do you wish you could fly?
Well, we’ve got your playlist: 20-plus episodes of majestic hummingbirds, delicate butterflies,
bees, ladybugs, pelicans... and of course, a few bloodsucking parasites. Later!