Atleast once a day I'm going to post a new fact, explain it, and give you a link to a more in depth explanation.
Flies (and a lot of other insects) are dumb things aren’t they? They are attracted to the weirdest things, but why?
I started this post talking about lights, but then I realised, they also hang around decay (for example, poo), so I’m going to answer both questions, which have two completely opposite explanations.
First off, lights. Flies are attracted to lights because they have simply evolved into it over thousands of years. Traditionally flies have an increased chance of survival when they are closest to the world’s most natural light, the moon. A lot of their predators (Frogs, for example) are restricted to the ground level, so they head to lights when they sense danger.
Then we come to the interesting topic of poo….
Unlike how flies have evolved to be attracted to lights to survive, they haven’t evolved an effective digestive system like humans. Their bodies cannot break down food as well as other animals can.
“Normal food” is the equivelant to a fly as to what a cow is to a human. We need somebody else to process the cow into something that we can actually eat. This is why they prefer broken down food to unbroken down food. Although they will still have a go at our food…
If a fly lands on your food don’t eat it!! To digest unbroken down food they vomit on it (which breaks it down) before they eat it!
I missed a post yesterday due to having an overly awesome weekend - I may be a smart arse but I still know how to party. I’m gonna count this as two facts.
