Several common flies, such as housefly, golden fly, green fly, calligraphy, hemp fly, etc., belong to omnivorous flies.
Although they eat everything, do you know that flies are actually not very good at “mouth” and can’t eat solid food, only liquid food?
However, even so, flies are not less likely to “kill” our food through their unique “dining etiquette”.
The “dining etiquette” of flies:
eat, spit, and pull
Fly mouthparts
The mouthparts of most flies belong to the licking type (that is, licking and sucking), the upper and lower jaws of the licking and sucking mouthparts are degenerated, and there is only one pair of rod-shaped mandibular whiskers on the lower jaw. The largest part that sticks out when feeding is the lower lip, and the end of the lower lip is specialized into a spongy lip for licking and sucking food. There is a small flake above the lower lip which is the upper lip.
The “eat” of flies
The feeding behavior of the housefly is very interesting. When it comes into contact with food, it uses the chemoreceptors on its feet and beak to distinguish the taste. These receptors are very sensitive to sugar liquid. When it encounters the food it likes, it stretches its mouthparts and sucks hard. At this time, the front-end lip of the mouthpart is in a filtered state or a bowl-like state, and liquid or slurry food such as sugar water, milk, honey juice, etc. can be inhaled.
If it is solid food, such as sugar grains, bread crumbs, etc., the flies have come up with a very disgusting solution: “spit” on it.
It spit out the liquid in the crop to decompose and liquefy solid food, and used the fine teeth on its lips to crush the particles in the food. When the food is almost decomposed, it can start to suck a full meal.
The “spit” of the fly
This is not enough, when flies are full, they will also spit out some of the food they have sucked in from their mouths, whether before or after eating, they will spit out some crop fluid.
The “pull” of the fly
Do you think this is over? Of course not only.
The fly not only vomits while eating, it also pulls.
It has been observed that when food is abundant, flies defecate 4-5 times per minute. It’s not enough for flies to vomit while eating, so why pull them?
Flies have a very mixed diet, like fragrant, sweet, sour, and stinky. They will inevitably eat microorganisms that are unfavorable to them while eating. Therefore, the method of “pulling while eating” helps flies to quickly eliminate bacteria. It only takes 7-11 seconds for flies to eat, digest and absorb food, and excrete waste. This is also a weapon for flies to protect themselves.
Even more frightening is that if the fly is pregnant with a baby, it may also lay eggs on your food by the way… (thinking about the picture)
So, if you see flies “kissing” your food for a long time, don’t take the luck of “it’s not clean, eat without disease”, and deal with it quickly!
Post time: Jul-25-2022