The housefly is the most common insect we encounter. Their breeding, feeding and how they get around are quite different from most insects we encounter. Houseflies benefit ecologically from their association with us and our domesticated animals. Strangely, house flies are rarely found in places where humans are absent. Here are a few facts on flies you may want to be aware of.
1. Houseflies poop a lot, in fact almost every time they land. So next time one lands on your food you could swat away the food with the fly, think Salmonella and E.coli.
2. They are relatively young insects in the world only 70 million years vs other insects that have been around for 250 million years.
3. Houseflies multiply quickly, one pair of flies could (if conditions where just right) produce 200 quintillion (200,000,000,000,000,000,000) offspring in five months' time.
4. Houseflies don't travel very far, and aren't very fast (about 7 km per hour).
5. Houseflies taste with all six feet (just think of what they like to land on).
6. They can see behind themselves because of their large compound eyes, made up of thousands of individual visual receptors.
7. Houseflies slurp up their food, first they regurgitate digestive juices onto solid foods and once the food solitaries they drink it up.
8. A male house flies has a ‘love spot’ on its eyes. It used to detect and chase down female flies.
