When we think of the most dangerous pests, the names that come to our mind are probably the ones that sting or bite. House flies cannot bite or sting but can cause still cause significant harm to us.
The worst thing about flies is that they often land on trash, manure, rotten food, and even dead animals. By frequenting these places, flies can pick-up and spread several life-threatening diseases. If you are a business owner operating in the pharmaceutical or food industry, house flies can be a serious concern for you.
Though all of us are extremely familiar with them, there are many fascinating facts about house flies and their habits that many people are not aware of.
- The mouthparts required for chewing food are not present in house flies. This is why they live on a liquid diet. They are not able to chew food, they can only drink it. To do this they vomit up their digestive juices on to the solid foods they want to consume, and the food gets liquified by these digestive juices, which allows the flies to drink the resulting meal using their proboscis.
- Just like butterflies, flies use their feet to taste food because taste receptors are located on their feet and lower leg. Therefore, when flies land on a potential meal, which can be anything from your dinner to animal faeces, they tend to wander around to get the taste before consuming.
- In general, house flies defecate a lot. As they live off a liquid diet, their digestive system moves easily and quickly. It is understood that flies defecate each time they land, including when landing on your meal.
- As a result of their breeding and feeding habits, flies frequently come into close contact with many different harmful bacteria species. As a result, they are the vectors of many diseases including typhoid, cholera, dysentery, etc.
- It may sound surprising to you, but house flies can walk upside down. Their anatomy allows them to climb or walk, whether the surface is vertical, horizontal, or even upside down. Each foot of a house fly is equipped with two fat foot pads known as pulvilli containing tiny hairs capable of producing a glue-like substance. This substance provides them excellent grip while scaling any surface.
- Flies have amazing eyes and can even see behind them. Known as compound eyes, they have an almost 360-degree view, allowing house flies to see behind them. Also, unlike human eyes, the eyes of a house fly can’t move.
- House flies have extraordinary reaction times and that’s why it is very difficult to swat one. In comparison to 60 images processed per second by the human brain, the brain of a fly can process around 250 images per second.
- The average lifespan of a housefly is around 30 days. However, in their brief life, females can lay up to 500 eggs. Therefore, it doesn’t take long for a space to get fly infested.
If you are serious about protecting your business or workplace from fly infestation, please contact us at Vectothor. Our fly light traps are designed in accordance with the vision spectrum of the house fly and offer extraordinarily high catch rates.
