FLIES–WHAT’S THE BUZZ?

They are annoying. We swat them away from our face with our hands. We aim for the one crawling on the counter or the mirror with a rolled-up magazine or a swatter – and we miss. We cover our food to keep away these disease carriers. THEY are flies, and THEY are everywhere. 

There are approximately one million species of flies between the two subclasses of the order Diptera making them the fourth largest insect group in that order. Only around 125,000 have been formerly described, the rest await further contemplation. Found on every continent on earth except Antarctica, 18,000 species of flies are found in North America alone. The earliest fossils of this insect were found to be from the Triassic period, which was about 240 million years ago. They are resilient. 

Flies are the only major group of insects to have a single pair of wings. Once upon a time they had four wings, but two devolved into two tiny structures called halteres. The halteres vibrate vertically at the same speed as the other two wings and act as rudders to keep the fly balanced in flight. The most common flies are house flies and mosquitoes. Gnats, blow flies, horse flies, and black flies have also evolved from being four winged insects. Butterflies and dragonflies have four wings and therefore are not considered to be a true fly. An adult fly generally lives 21 days. A female house fly can lay up to 600 eggs in her short time on earth. There may be as many as ten or more generations of house flies in a season.

Each foot of a fly’s six legs has a pair of claws that resemble tongs which hold on to rough surfaces. Beneath the claw is a sticky pad which the fly uses to hold on to smooth surfaces. It is this pad that allows a fly to walk up walls, mirrors, the sides of cabinets, and across ceilings. These feet, plus all the little hairs on his body, are what carry disease. If a fly lands on a heap of garbage, for example, he transfers whatever particles he’s picked up there to that slice of watermelon you’re eating. However, a fly that lands on your food for only a second or two is probably not there long enough to transfer enough bacteria to do harm. A fly tastes with his feet so he’s probably enjoying that watermelon as much as you are.

Many of our fly buttons were worn on garments during the Victorian Age. The Victorians were fascinated by insects because they bear no resemblance to humans at all. Victorian entomologists weren’t highly regarded by their peers, but when the relationship between mosquitoes and disease finally was understood, they gained respect and were called upon to help control the insects and stop diseases like diarrhea and typhoid. Victorian author Sir Conan Arthur Doyle made the villain in his The Hound of the Baskervilles an entomologist. When he retired, Doyle took up beekeeping.

Flies have often been a subject in literature. In the 1954 book, The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, a popular choice of teens, the flies are a symbol of children stranded on an island without any adults.

Want to keep flies from landing on you?  Trying wearing clothes with stripes.  Researchers in the UK and the USA have found that flies land less frequently on zebras, and on horses that were wearing a coat of zebra-like fabric.  Their reasoning is that the lines disrupt the fly’s ability to make a controlled landing.

So why do we miss when we swat at a fly more often than we hit it?  It’s not because he’s super-fast, because he isn’t.  His top speed is about five miles per hour and he’s not capable of sustaining that speed for long periods.  The answer is because a fly sees the world in slow motion and can react quickly to what he sees.  In the time it takes a human to raise a swatter, take aim, and swing, a fly has already honed in on the swatter and planned his escape route.   You swing, you miss, and he flies away only to return to annoy you later.

Despite the fact that there is such an abundance of fly species, the ones found on buttons are mainly the common housefly. Most of the renditions show the fly from the top where the segmented body of the fly, the head, the thorax, and the abdomen can be seen. Its two wings are prominent and stretch along the entire length of the body. The fly’s six legs can often be seen. While the lack of movement is evident, and despite the monotony of the view, they really do make an interesting tray. They come in an abundance of materials and are easy to find. There are many different artistic finishes, paint, enamel, pastes, etc., and construction techniques used to enhance a button’s appeal.

Flies can carry typhoid, anthrax, and cholera. Mosquitoes can carry malaria, encephalitis, dengue fever, and West Nile. This is one reason why flies are generally associated with death and decay. Another reason is, in our cycle of life, they are decomposers which feed on dead and decaying animals and trash. Most species, however, don’t cause harm to humans and, in fact, play an important role in the life cycle. One of the most important functions they perform is transferring pollen from one plant to another. They are second only to bees in this function. Flies eat a number of insects and have been specifically used to control other species which cause harm to crops. Flies themselves are a food source for many animals such as frogs, birds, and lizards.  Baby larvae, maggots, have been used by doctors to help patients with flesh wounds, especially burn victims as they eat away the damaged flesh which helps the wound heal.

In Prometheus Bound, by Aeschylus, Hera, wife of the god Zeus, sends a gadfly to torment Zeus’ mistress, Io, who he turned into a cow to hide her from Hera. In the play Anthony and Cleopatra, by William Shakespeare, he alludes to this myth as he writes that Cleopatra’s quick departure from the Actium battlefield is like a “cow being chased by a gadfly”.

Also in mythology, Zeus sent a fly to bite the horse Pegasus which caused him to throw off Bellerophon as he attempted to ride Pegasus to Mount Olympus.  Instead, he fell to earth.

The nursery rhyme, “There was an Old Woman (Who Swallowed a Fly)” tells the story of an old woman who swallowed a variety of creatures in an attempt to rid herself of the fly she first swallowed.