Has this ever happened to you? There’s a fly in the house, buzzing around you, so you go to the cabinet to get the swatter. But as soon as you start wielding it, the little bastard disappears. You set it down, and now he’s back, taunting you.
Ok so obviously flies don’t taunt, but do they have the capacity to recognize, even instinctually, that I’m holding a deadly weapon?
To me it seems absolutely like it, yes. For whatever reason, Flies are sophisticated nuisance animals, they got all the perks to be effective in that endeavour. If you signal them it’s their life or death, it’s even more interesting, prime directive is to dance on your nose by then.
Fortunately, they got a few “bugs in their code” which makes them a bit more controllable, I know of a few very interesting ones:
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Fear of moving fabric:
Be it a sock or a T-Shirt, once it starts to whirl through the air somewhere near them, they panic. Try and compare, take a solid object (even a fly swatter) or your hand and just whoosh it close by. Often they are back within the blink of an eye, even more annoying now. Try the same with something out of fabric, they will keep 10 times the distance afterwards.
Possible explanation: Their fly brain interpretes it similar to bird wings, a threat even they take serious. -
Sleep mode in dim light:
While flies seek out a place to sleep in the light of a single tea candle, you can still see them. Incredibly useful to get rid of flies in small spaces like a caravan or a tent. Possible explanation: They just lack vision, so their only option is to chill at the closest surface. -
Fear of crawling into openings:
If a fly wakes you up way before your time, build a little cave in front of your face (Think of the entrance to an Igloo). They won’t crawl in for the life of them.
Possible explanation: The ones crawling into the mouth of something often didn’t live to pass on their genes. -
Water bottle reflection:
How to: Fill a clear bottle with water, close the lid and put it up where they have to see it. I have to admit, I long thought of this as being silly and esoteric Mumbo Jumbo, yet after several attempts at it when Flies became unbearably annoying outside, there are clear differences in their behaviour once you put these up. They will still annoy you from angles where they have no line of view to the bottle, so prepare to set up a few.
Possible explanation: Reflections messing with their vision, esoteric Mumbo Jumbo.
I’d be happy to read some more if you came across something that messes with them, I hate to simply kill or poison them (Don’t want fly innards in my living space or poison my surroundings) but to be annoying in revenge is fair game, especially when you get rid of them that way. Btw: how do the salt gun folks deal with the salt being literally everywhere after a shooting spree?
You have given a lot of thought to the behavior of flies.
the buggers didn’t survive 300 million years of evolution for no reason. They even plagued the T Rexes.
Which makes me want to know whose houses the houseflies lived in back then.
Sleep mode in dim light: While flies seek out a place to sleep in the light of a single tea candle, you can still see them. Incredibly useful to get rid of flies in small spaces like a caravan or a tent. Possible explanation: They just lack vision, so their only option is to chill at the closest surface.
Seems to work on mosquitos as well BTW. Whenever one of those bastards made its way indoors, I turn off the lights, point a flashlight at the brightest wall in the room and wait. In most cases the mosquito will land somewhere on the bright part of the wall eventually (might take a few minutes tho) and can be swatted.
I totally need to try out that water bottle trick tho. That sounds like a neat, poison-free alternative to hunting the buggers down yourself.
You can use your flashlight to find and blind them so they’re easier to hit.
I keep a big ass butterfly net around the house for flies. Sometimes they are tricky and good at avoiding the net, but I get them eventually and let them go outside. The trick is getting back inside without them following me. The best way is to gently make a fist around them at the tip of the net and push your fist out the cat door and then pull the net backwards until they are released. This only works if you have a cat door.
I spray them with windex, so I can just pick them up with a paper towel or something
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I don’t think they can recognize the flyswatter, but they do seem to find a sudden increase in movement around them suspicious. Move slowly and strike from close up.
As silly as they seem, the anti-fly salt shotguns work super well precisely because you aren’t swinging them wildly around, alerting the flies. You can almost poke them with the barrel tip if you move slow, but the actual shot comes too fast to evade.
excuse me where can i buy an “anti fly salt shotgun” that sounds badass
Your life is about to take a turn for the better, my friend. 😀
Here. I have a few of the “2.0” model at my house and it’s great for bugs which have landed or don’t fly, hitting them in the air is tough.
They have other colors, and apparently now even a CO₂ powered pistol for really big bugs (with proprietary ammo refills, no thanks)
They’re not that great in my experience.
I’ve always been curious about how big a mess the salt gun makes every time you use it.
Understand to that time appears differently to Flys. We move in slow motion to them.
That’s really interesting. How do we know this?
I’ve noticed this with even fruit flies. I use an electric swatter (in addition to the apple cider vinegar trick) to get at them, and they seem to recognize that something is threatening them. Maybe the electric swatter emits some sort of sound that only they can hear, I don’t know. But as soon as I pull that swatter out, they all seem to disappear.
My experience is YES. They can sense the danger somehow.
Fly nervous system reaction times are so fast you willnever beat them at their game. Gotta be smarter
sounds like you are projecting.
