explainlikeimfive

ELI5 why do flies constantly land on you, when they are constantly swatted away?

My assumptions are that 1) they sense our bodies, meaning interesting biological smells (potential food) and they are aggravatingly, ceaselessly resource driven or 2) they are aggravatingly, ceaselessly curious, like cat (see also, puking on things, screaming in your ear, bringing the chaos into a room, leaving squishy things where you don't want them, etc).

There's this one little jerk who, for the last 3 days, had been touching my sleeping face every 10 seconds and waking me up.

https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lvimlw/eli5_why_do_flies_constantly_land_on_you_when/
Reddit

Discussion

iamcleek

they are very very stupid and very very determined. Seek Food. Dodge. Seek Food. Dodge. it's their whole life.

6 hours ago
BigMax

Exactly. The best explanation is that they are like very simple robots more than animals with complex thought. Just a few basic commands.

So like you said:

1) Seek food
a) If found, eat
b) If danger, flee
2) Return to step 1

4 hours ago
VarmintSchtick

And sometimes

c) Fuck

4 hours ago
bboycire

Not sometimes. Some of them skips step 1 entirely on their last stage of life, so that they can focus on c)

4 hours ago
BrokeDickDoug

yeah, lots of insects don't even have the means to eat in their final form. Really puts a timer on reproduction.

2 hours ago
LOTRfreak101

Like cicadas!

1 hour ago
bboycire

What?! Then how do they pee on you so much?

I'm pretty sure they still drink saps

1 hour ago
azhillbilly

Wait, you let cicadas piss on you?

1 hour ago
bboycire

Brother, when you walk under a tree and wonder why it's drizzling even if the sky is clear, and you are under a tree... I have some news for you.

you let

I mean what are you gonna do? Yell "I don't consent!" at the trees when you go out?

1 hour ago
ThirstyWolfSpider

… or normal transpiration or guttation. But I'm not in a cicada zone.

51 minutes ago
azhillbilly

Oh yes! The victim. At what point does personal responsibility become a factor in this equation? I see piss comin' I run. She saw piss comin' she stayed. And why should I miss out on the next R. Kelly album just fo' that?

Riley

1 hour ago
mfigroid

Why you gotta kink shame?

53 minutes ago
BlueMaxx9

Cicadas can still eat/drink in their big-stupid-flying-bug form. Their mouth parts are just really small and they are so driven to do the baby making thing that they don't really bother to eat or drink much. It is kinda like if a human had a mouth the size of a drinking straw, and was so jacked up on viagra and ozempic that they didn't care about eating food anyway.

42 minutes ago
sparklyjesus

TIL I am a fly.

1 hour ago
axelxan

Are you telling me, that Im basically a fly with more side quests?

37 minutes ago
Badloss

Same here tbh

36 minutes ago
The_Real_Pepe_Si1via

Fruit flies appear in your house out of nowhere because you brought them in as fruit fly maggots on your fruit skins and they've been in the house the whole time.

3 hours ago
blackNamerica

Thanks! I hate it.

3 hours ago
Heiling_Seitan

Love this band.

1 hour ago
VarmintSchtick

You telling me im eating maggots every time I eat an apple?

3 hours ago
Anonymous44432

Brother do NOT look at any fruit under a microscope if you’re worried about this stuff

2 hours ago
VarmintSchtick

Hell nothin but a little extra protein to help me meet my macros

2 hours ago
Ahielia

Maggots, or eggs. It's best to not give these things too much thought, else you'll probably never eat again.

2 hours ago
mrstabbeypants

Think of it as meat.

1 hour ago
Jafooki

Free protein

55 minutes ago
_XenoChrist_

Same as the face mites.

48 minutes ago
Ahielia

nopenopenope

40 minutes ago
Gibonius

That's one of the reasons you're supposed to wash your fruit!

3 hours ago
EmmEnnEff

Pretty sure eating a few fruit fly eggs isn't going to harm your health.

Pretty sure eating whatever toxic shit that crops get sprayed with might.

1 hour ago
nestestasjon

And why it’s a good idea to store fruit in the refrigerator. I’ve actually come to prefer cold bananas because of this habit. 

2 hours ago
VoilaVoilaWashington

Nah, who cares about fruit fly eggs? They're not harmful. You wash your fruit because they've gathered all kinds of bacteria between the farm and your house.

24 minutes ago
Anyawnomous

d) poop

3 hours ago
RockEyeOG

Maybe false tribal knowledge, but I heard that flies don't poop. They throw up when they land to make room for more food.

1 hour ago
Anyawnomous

Today I Learned!!!!!

1 hour ago
gprez1898

Perfect occasion for me to mention I once saw a couple flies fucking on my wall. I watched for at least a minute or two and it was hilarious. Think , doggy style , with a minimal thrust once every 20-30 seconds 😂😂

1 hour ago
Thrilling1031

They also like to land to poop/pee.

42 minutes ago
adrenalinda75

Meanwhile, the fly: Contemplating actio et reactio. "Woah, I can trigger this huge being just by touching it. Woah, so cool, let me do it again! Does it also work with other body parts? Woah, dude, yeah, crazy. I wonder if it's sentient, but can this mass of hydrocarbon even be? Do they also remember past lives as I do? Meh, we're just stardust in an endless cycle, let me touch it again!"

3 hours ago
created4this

I wonder what stuff you have to do to be reincarnated as a HUMAN, gross to even think about! Derek, shall we go eat some cat shit?

2 hours ago
Background_Way2738

truly delectable piss and shit :P

2 hours ago
Best-and-Blurst

1) Seek food
a) If found, eat
b) If danger, flee
2) Return to step 1

You also need to add this line to your code to cover a fly's windows bug

3) Fly in X direction

a) If obstacle, repeat

1 hour ago
HalfSoul30

I'd rather just pass the butter my whole life.

5 hours ago
Throwawaybombsquad

Oh my god.

4 hours ago
Rydme

Welcome to the club, pal.

5 hours ago
Ciserus

More than that, their reflexes are hard-wired. Their sensory organs are pretty much directly connected to their legs, so they jump when they see movement without any involvement from their brain.

2 hours ago
AvengingBlowfish

https://www.reddit.com/r/ImTheMainCharacter/s/H88u2uWSbQ

5 hours ago
scottsaa

Couldn't even finish this. Holy hell

5 hours ago
nebulacoffeez

Oh my god LOLOL

5 hours ago
chopkins92

The real cringe is in the comments.

Would you rather men be taught how to stay losers that can’t get laid? I mean i agree a lot of it is manipulative but lets not bullshit ourselves here…if it works then it works. Otherwise people wouldn’t be doing it. If you are a girl just know that most guys you’ve dated had to really struggle and work hard when it comes to dating. Meanwhile most girls have no problem getting dates. They can just get away with just looking pretty and having no personality. Guys on the other hand have to bring so much to the table. This is the reality, unfortunately.

3 hours ago
jtclimb

I was about to comment about the exact same comment. "Would you rather men be taught how to stay losers that can’t get laid?" Like those are the only two paths, harassment or incels.

37 minutes ago
Etheo

Haha cuz they're the food got it. Thanks to this next time I see a fly I'll probably smack it instead of just shooing it.

4 hours ago
-Safe_Zombie-

I watched the whole clip, and am so annoyed. We are taught to be nice and “ignore” this behavior though? Like??? Girls deserve to be taught to protect themselves, not placate men.

4 hours ago
DuckRubberDuck

Sometimes playing nice and doing the awkward giggle is a way to protect yourself. Some people really don’t handle rejections well

3 hours ago
Randomnesse

This is so cringe. I would've just openly pulled out pepper spray after a first minute if I were one of those girls.

3 hours ago
AnotherUN91

They learned from patches o'hoolihan.

4 hours ago
jaymzx0

Nature's little robots

4 hours ago
thesuperunknown

Man, imagine just doing the same thing every day your whole life. Ha ha, stupid flies! Glad we're nothing like them!

1 hour ago
you-nity

Considering how many flies there are, this strategy works great

3 hours ago
OilHot3940

They are extremely persistent and well adapted with extraordinarily fast reflexes.

2 hours ago
tomorrowschild

I feel personally attacked.

56 minutes ago
Reckless_Waifu

Their brain is roughly the size of a fly's brain. 

5 hours ago
JustOneSexQuestion

Got a source to back that up?

4 hours ago
Zelcron

Yeah:

Science

3 hours ago
SlickNolte

I’ll take your word for it, I’m no scienceologist

1 hour ago
M4GN3T1CM0N0P0L3

Trust me, bro.

3 hours ago
FreeRandomScribble

His source is that he made it the fuck up

45 minutes ago
Incidion

I dunno man, that seems like a pretty rough estimate for the size of a fly's brain. Can you put this in reference to the brain of a newt?

4 hours ago
Avitas1027

Much smaller than a newt's brain.

4 hours ago
chawmindur

That's what happens to newts that didn't get better 

3 hours ago
monkfish-online

We need a banana for scale.

4 hours ago
mattcoady

They're roughly the size of a fly next to a banana

3 hours ago
ChthonicFractal

What's smaller than a teeny weeny fly?

A fly's teeny weeny.

3 hours ago
iTalk2Pineapples

Its a grower. Also its cold out.

1 hour ago
ChthonicFractal

What do you get when you pull the wings off of a fly?

A walk.

1 hour ago
iTalk2Pineapples

SUBSCRIBE.

I want more fly jokes.

59 minutes ago
ChthonicFractal

I have one more but it's a lot to type out. I'll just copy and paste it.

Three swordsmen walk into a bar. The first one says,

‘I can use a sword better than all of you.’ The other two then say to him,

‘All right then. Prove it.’ So he says,

‘See that fly on the wall there?’ He swung his blade, cutting the fly clean in half. The second swordsman says,

‘That’s very good, but I can do you one better. See that fly on the wall there?’ He swung his blade twice, cutting the fly into four even quarters. The third swordsman nods.

‘That is very, very impressive, but I reckon that I can do better. See that fly on the wall there?’ He swings his blade once. The fly just buzzes away. The other two are unimpressed.

‘What’s the big deal? Look, it’s still buzzing around.’ The third swordsman smiles.

‘Yes, but that fly will never have children again.’

51 minutes ago
iTalk2Pineapples

Ive never considered a fly's genitalia before today and behold, two fly dick jokes in one sitting. You, sir or madam, have been to some strange corners of the internet. I applaud that as a fellow adventurer.

38 minutes ago
critical_patch

Big if true

3 hours ago
caret_h

Americans really will use anything but the metric system.

2 hours ago
ChaseballBat

This phrase was invented in medieval London because it was so stinky and there were so many flies.

2 hours ago
Allister117

Nah, it’s roughly the size of a grape fruit. Trust me I’m a “scientist”

2 hours ago
Full_FrontaI_Nerdity

Yeah, well so are sprinkles- and they're delicious!

22 minutes ago
Svelva

Mostly because it's their only weapon.

Small, no weapons, no toxins, nothing to defend themselves. So instead of putting themselves in danger's way (which would need defense), they dodge it incredibly fast.

"But don't they see that swatter going at them for the 20th time?" they do! And their strategy works: they dodged that swatter successfully 20 times.

(Except that this mf won't survive the 21st atta- dang it)

Like humans. We don't have clearly visible weapons (nails are pretty bad at inflicting deep wounds without coming off, teeth also), but we have smart brains. Which allowed us to come up with nation-scale weapons instead. Or swatters careful approach there you are you little- OH COME ON.

5 hours ago
Pletterpet

Flies dodge in very predictable patterns, just aim for where its going

5 hours ago
WntrTmpst

Flys jump slightly backward when they take off so swat slightly behind them when they’re landed.

5 hours ago
Boxcars4Peace

Just clap about 3 inches above them. They get sucked in and killed 80% of the time. If you haven’t tried it you’ll be surprised how well it works.

5 hours ago
Plaid_Kaleidoscope

But then I have fly guts all over my hands.

4 hours ago
Methuga

You likely typed this on your cellphone. The fly guts are cleaner.

4 hours ago
great_apple

This is like those people who say "A dog's mouth has less bacteria than a human's mouth!" I mean I've never looked up if that's true because I don't care, I still don't want a dog licking my mouth because now I have dog slobber on my lips.

I'm sure on a technical level there's a bigger variety of germs on my phone than on a dead fly (although they literally eat shit so who knows), but I don't want fly guts on my hands.

1 hour ago
DothrakiSlayer

… there are people out there who don’t clean their phone?

4 hours ago
midnightBloomer24

I'll have you know my phone is seasoned, like a cast iron skillet

4 hours ago
itsthelee

instructions unclear. rubbed oil all over phone and put in oven at 450F for an hour, phone caught on fire.

3 hours ago
midnightBloomer24

No no, you're almost there, you gotta wait for the battery to 'rise'

3 hours ago
WgXcQ

That's good, that means it didn't explode. Yet.

31 minutes ago
Puzzleheaded-Fill205

You guys clean your phone?

4 hours ago
theotherquantumjim

I mean. There’s people out there that don’t clean themselves.

3 hours ago
Plaid_Kaleidoscope

I didn't, and I doubt it. I tend to keep my electronics (and my home) clean. Regardless, even if it is "cleaner", it's disgusting.

4 hours ago
VarmintSchtick

As long as you're not at a fancy restaurant you're allowed to lick your fingers.

4 hours ago
ThePeskyWabbit

clapping your hands pushes the air out from between your hands. It doesn't suck in. But it does intercept the flight path of the fly

4 hours ago
VarmintSchtick

You have to lower your closed hands down first, then open them swiftly for an immense compression wave created by the low pressure region of air you have created which the fly cannot help but be sucked into, and then you clap.

4 hours ago
ThePeskyWabbit

Now that i can see working

4 hours ago
WntrTmpst

This dude is out here force pulling flies like Obiwan

1 hour ago
StaffordMagnus

To add to this, move your hands into position slowly, flies don't seem to be able to see slow moving things - if you've ever seen a jumping spider sneak up on a fly, that's how they do it.

Slow > slow > slow > slow > Jump!

5 hours ago
captainfarthing

I don't want bits of fly stuck to my hands...

A spray bottle with soapy water knocks them out the air and kills them in seconds, it's way easier than using your hands, faster and safer than bug spray.

4 hours ago
EmmEnnEff

So you're just spraying soap around in your home.

1 hour ago
captainfarthing

... it's soap. You'd rather wipe squished bug guts off your hands than wipe soap off the wall, really??

1 hour ago
EmmEnnEff

it's soap

So? It's not like soap is clean. Soap cleans by latching onto grime that you then wash down the drain, but just spraying it around in your house and not removing it after isn't going to do you any favors.

wipe squished bug guts off your hands

Yes, actually, it's a few seconds over a sink. It's not like I'm licking them off my hands, or rubbing them into my eyes.

1 hour ago
captainfarthing

just spraying it around in your house isn't going to do you any favors.

It's going to do no harm, and it knocks bugs out the air effortlessly. This is the most ridiculous thing to object to. 😂

1 hour ago
dagobahh

I just slowly position the swatter directly between my eyes/head and the fly. Slowly. Right above it. If I just take a regular swing I'm gonna miss most of the time.

4 hours ago
kilgoar

It is extremely effective. Learned this trick when I was a kid. If you're in a fly-infested area, and you're okay getting fly guts over your hand, you can rack up a massive kill count in a couple minutes

2 hours ago
Foxy02016YT

Figured that out and it works

4 hours ago
ChaosFinalForm

Better yet just grab a dish towel and swat it out of the air. You don't even have to connect, the wind will knock it down.

5 hours ago
drbroccoli00

I prefer to spray them with Lysol, it seems to make them fly super slow, then I just suck them up in my vacuum!

5 hours ago
painstream

Critters with exoskeletons use the pores to breathe. Coating them with cleansers goes a good way to suffocating them. I find a bottle with a focused spray useful for tagging them.

4 hours ago
ChaosFinalForm

That's a good one I'll have to remember that trick.

4 hours ago
Everyday_ImSchefflen

You guys are fucking stupid.

Just get chop sticks

3 hours ago
mrbombasticat

He needs to use the excellent pattern recognition of that human brain he talked about!

4 hours ago
stephenph

I think they do recognize the threat, it seems I only get a couple swats in before they leave the room

5 hours ago
Svelva

I wish it was the case where I live. Those flies are stubborn beyond reason. Or they're that confident in their skills and slowly drive me towards insanity while they feast on my skin for that ever-so-short second

5 hours ago
gnartato

Also most other animals haven't invented fly swatters yet. I guess horses use their tails. I'm sure there's a few other examples. But flus will not go extinct due to humans swatting at them therefore, as you stayed, they are mostly successful.

3 hours ago
Never_Sm1le

An electric net do the job, hovering them above and slowly come down. They will 80% fly straight up and get fried

2 hours ago
reikken

also there are a lot of them

If a fly has 100 babies and all but 10 of them die before reaching adulthood, and then those 10 go pester you and you kill 8 of them, and only those last 2 go on to reproduce, it's still a success. Simple brain that relentlessly seeks food is a better strategy for them.

1 hour ago
Takenabe

Insects do not have memory. It's like their brains are little organic computer programs that respond to stimuli in whatever way they have evolved to. You and I could reach for some food, get slapped on the hand by our angry grandma and told to wait, and then learn "I should wait and not do that again so I don't get smacked."

A fly can't do that. It detects possible food and goes to investigate. When you attack it, the fly detects a possible threat and moves. Then when the movement reflex is over, it detects possible food and goes to investigate... Just like all of the flies that came before it that successfully passed on the genes that gave them reflexes to investigate food and avoid threats.

5 hours ago
Raise_A_Thoth

Scientists recently mapped in detail a fruit fly's brain with 140,000 neurons.

https://www.princeton.edu/news/2024/10/02/mapping-entire-fly-brain-step-toward-understanding-diseases-human-brain

The human brain has more than 86 billion.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_brain

That is about 500,000 times more neurons, and I don't even know how many orders of magnitude more synaptic connections.

The complexity of mammal brains compared to insect brains is astronomical. Flies just don't have the memory to store concepts like "this is a sentient creature that wants to kill me so I should go somewhere else." Flies spend their entire existences seeking food and places to breed around other organic creatures, they just dodge and come back, dodge, come back. Most of the time it works because their brains are very good at dodging and avoidance in 3D space.

5 hours ago
Plow_King

something that i wonder about is why mammal brains in animals don't seem to learn better? like a squirrel crossing a street, it likely knows cars should be avoided due to size, and i would guess it knows cars are usually found on streets. but it doesn't seem to ever learn to look, or to proceed across in the direction it's going as fast as possible. i saw one do 3 or 4 direction changes in the middle of the street the other day as i was driving and i damn near swerved to avoid the stupid thing. it just doesn't seem like a complex problem to me. it seems like such a clear, simple and repetitive situation.

4 hours ago
Raise_A_Thoth

why mammal brains in animals don't seem to learn better?

Lots of large mammals have been seen more and more to develop tool uses, from the other apes to whales to elephants. Dolphins and especially Orcas are extremely intelligent and work in teams to hunt. Why exactly they don't seem as intelligent as we are is a complex question that is debated, even our measures of intelligence are thought to be inadequate to understand the animals.

like a squirrel crossing a street, it likely knows cars should be avoided due to size, and i would guess it knows cars are usually found on streets. but it doesn't seem to ever learn to look, or to proceed across in the direction it's going as fast as possible

So squirrels are much smaller and have shorter lifespans. They also have a much less capable form of communication. We know that one of the reasons we were able to dominate the planet is our communication. We can teach our children abstract concepts before they ever encounter them. A squirrel doesn't actually know what a road is. It's just smooth stone to them. A car is so large and fast usually they don't have enough time to process what it's doing, much less be able to warn their fellow squirrels about the dangers of roads. How would they even know that cars only go on the roads? They walk on grass, soil, and climb trees, why should other objects be limited to the "road?"

or to proceed across in the direction it's going as fast as possible

Again, why would the squirrel have an inherent understanding of road-crossing? Their natural predators are frequently coming from the sky or ambushing from the brush, not careening down a smooth stone surface that they don't understand is a long, winding pathway for humans.

We have built tools and infrastructure so specially to suit us that our basic homes pose extra danger to our children that we need to guard them against and teach them about. Simple activities like sitting on furniture and getting off furniture can result in falling on the head or even injuring the neck of small children. Electrical outlets and cables pose risks. Stairs are a major danger until children grow big and strong enough to safely climb and descend them. Cars? A squirrel has no concept if a car. It must hide from furry and feathery predators, forage for food, and reproduce.

Maybe some squirrels are slowly taking observance of the dangers of roads and may one day that trait for the new danger will evolve to add to their instincts, but that does not seem like a given, based on what we know.

4 hours ago
2punornot2pun

We actually statistically modeled Whale communications and found that they have the same frequency as any other language on the planet with certain "words" and "phrases" being used far more commonly and others much rarer.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11797547/

https://cosmiclog.com/2025/02/06/scientists-find-links-between-whale-songs-and-languages/

4 hours ago
MarineMirage

You probably wouldnt react any better if something the size of a building was flying at Mach 1 at you.

4 hours ago
Archarchery

I think animals are confused by cars because they think that something large and fast is either a predator chasing them, or it's not dangerous. When a squirrel sees a car coming towards it, it triggers its prey instincts to run, but it can't understand that the car is not chasing it and only moves in a straight line. So a squirrel sees a car coming towards it and tries to flee to the nearest point of safety, based on the car's speed and proximity if it were giving chase.

This is the same reason I think that deer often jump into the path of cars; they just see the fast-approching threat and try to flee, often forwards in the same direction they're facing. It's just trying to flee blindly and has no conception that it would be safer if it stopped and leapt the opposite way, or just stood still by the side of the road.

They react to the car like it is a chasing predator that is not confined to the road, and make decisions about where to run based on that.

3 hours ago
VarmintSchtick

Okay but when I read an article saying butterflies retain memories after going through metamorphosis from when they were caterpillar - what the heck are they talking about?

4 hours ago
Raise_A_Thoth

That's above my paygrade. Maybe I was too generalized with my comment, or maybe butterflies specifically have a certain amount of memory - butterflies are much larger than fruit flies, after all.

But that'a a reasonable question and I'm afraid ai cannot confidently answer it.

4 hours ago
Questjon

I guess it depends how you define a memory. They trained the caterpillar with shocks and smells to avoid one particular branch of a y shaped tube and the mature moth remembered which tube to avoid. It's something to do with a particular type of odour memory neuron called mushroom bodies.

2 hours ago
AgnesBand

Insects do not have memory.

They absolutely do.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insect_cognition

https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20211126-why-insects-are-more-sensitive-than-they-seem

5 hours ago
Anavorn

Frankly, I find the idea of a bug that thinks, offensive!

5 hours ago
krokooc

i cant believe i'm hearing this non-sense...

4 hours ago
brooksyd2

Would you like to know more?

2 hours ago
brooksyd2

Would you like to know more?

2 hours ago
Kaiisim

It's more accurate to say they lack cognition and understanding of the world that would allow them to understand what is happening.

They have memory, but it's simple based on what information they can get from their senses.

So they can remember "food there" and "danger hot there" but it's based on smells and heat and stuff like that.

But mostly, humans are very bad at killing flies, so they aren't worried about us. Because their brains are smaller, and the neurons much shorter length, they experience reality "faster" than humans. So they are always ahead of us.

4 hours ago
trite_panda

Bees, sure. But mosquitoes? House flies? Fruit flies? I’m pressing X on those idiots.

5 hours ago
dog_10

The person you are replying to linked evidence of fruit fly learning and cognition. They are one of the most widely studied model organisms. 

5 hours ago
TB-313935

For those still doubting evolution because it's a theory. Evolution is observed in Drosophila, they can adapt to different environments in a matter of weeks because of their rapid reproduction.

5 hours ago
Sterling_-_Archer

The Making of Long-Lasting Memories: A Fruit Fly Perspective

You’d be shocked to discover what organisms have memory.

5 hours ago
Recky-Markaira

Mosquitos have been observed remembering the people who swat at them and avoiding that individual for others.

5 hours ago
roguesignal42069

I'm the goddamn mosquito buffet. Hanging outside at night with a group of friends, I'm always the one they choose.

Hate those little bastards.

1 hour ago
AgnesBand

When you look into it almost every living thing is either smarter or more interesting than you once thought.

4 hours ago
PlasticGarbage6360

This is new for me

4 hours ago
ggobrien

Reminds me of the mouse traps I put behind the washing machine. I put 2 of them and caught 2 mice. I can just imagine what the 2nd mouse is thinking...

"Oh, poor Uncle Ernie, he was too young to ... ooo, cheese"

4 hours ago
Hauwke

Grandma better be ready to throw down /s

1 hour ago
idkrandomusername1

They’re attracted to co2, and we’re constantly expelling that. I saw some kind of trap with this in mind but forgot what it was called

5 hours ago
ThePeskyWabbit

yeast and sugar water trap.

4 hours ago
notislant

They have fly zappers, you attach a propane tank for the co2 and it zaps them when they fly in.

1 hour ago
vulture_165

Best way to kill flies: Once they've landed, carefully approach them until within arms' length. The next part takes commitment and you will want to wash your hands. Quickly clap your hands together at a point a few centimeters above them. They will 'dodge' into the clap. I'm about 90% successful with this method. Of course sometimes they won't land...

5 hours ago
rojeli

I'm just a stupid redditor that knows nothing, but I read/heard once that flies have a "take off" strategy that is not UP, like a helicopter, but at a 45 degree angle (or lower), like a plane. (But obviously from a resting position.) So any movement straight down on top of a sitting fly will likely not work. Unless you are using a swatter, which has different air resistance than your hand.

A clap works better in that it can mitigate the 45-degree takeoff from two directions.

5 hours ago
vulture_165

Maybe, I'd say because it occurs right above them that 45 degrees in any direction equals splat. But maybe that's why I miss sometimes?

5 hours ago
boringestnickname

Version without washing your hands:

Just catch it at the same point where you would clap.

Now you have a fly in your hand that you can do whatever you want with.

4 hours ago
vulture_165

Hmm. Success rate? I feel like the timing would be tricky... I've actually started to cup my hands slightly and rarely need to wash them (but always do).

4 hours ago
boringestnickname

Success rate is probably like 9/10 for me, but I've been doing it all my life, so ymmv.

The moment you figure out the right height, it's hard to get wrong, really.

4 hours ago
Teal-Fox

Ooh I can feed it to the spider!

4 hours ago
Sloth-papi

The ants!

4 hours ago
Acceleratio

I do the same but I just catch them and throw them out the window

2 hours ago
tiltpizza

Spray bottle with isopropyl alcohol.

23 minutes ago
LordBrixton

Houseflies are just a petty annoyance. I will just open a window and swat at them vaguely until they leave.

Horseflies, I will not suffer to live. They get the swat every time. And they seem to have much less efficient threat-detection than houseflies so they're a guaranteed one-swat, one-kill.

3 hours ago
NahikuHana

They don't even know the swatter thing is a part of the thing they landed on.

5 hours ago
mmmmbetter

You can say the same thing about humans. Why do men keep trying to get with a girl who turns them down? Why do some people vote against their own interests over and over? Why do kids want to do the exact thing you told them not to do? Creatures are stubborn and sometimes dumb.

5 hours ago
BrowningLoPower

It's disappointing, and terrifying how we have humans this dumb, let alone so many of them.

5 hours ago
pay_student_loan

It’s a big moral question but it’s definitely the result of taking out the factor of survival of the fittest. Unqualified and even some arguably qualified animals die in the wild all the time but people who actively do very stupid things can get saved by modern medical advancements and be back out to make TikTok videos about doing more stupid things and influence others. These days you can be factually wrong about everything and still make a living so there really isn’t any incentive to be logical and mature other than to follow your own beliefs.

As long as there are no real major repercussions and as long as society keeps on catering to the lowest common denominator, this cycle will only continue to make things worse.

4 hours ago
Last_Tourist_3881

I'd add: Why do women keep hooking up with visibly terrible men? Why do they keep having their children?

5 hours ago
Smartnership

Because they don’t trust invisible terrible men?

11 minutes ago
Smartnership

You can say the same thing about humans. Why do men keep trying to get with a girl who turns them down?

So you’re saying, like a fly, they just land on them?

Or are you saying flies are trying to get my phone humbler?

12 minutes ago
[deleted]

[removed]

6 hours ago
explainlikeimfive-ModTeam

Your submission has been removed for the following reason(s):

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5 hours ago
Efficient_Sector_870

Unexpected sexism

5 hours ago
[deleted]

[removed]

5 hours ago
explainlikeimfive-ModTeam

Please read this entire message


Your comment has been removed for the following reason(s):

  • Top level comments (i.e. comments that are direct replies to the main thread) are reserved for explanations to the OP or follow up on topic questions (Rule 3).

Joke-only comments, while allowed elsewhere in the thread, may not exist at the top level.


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5 hours ago
frisch85

A fly's short term memory only lasts around 4 seconds, so if you swat them they already forgotten that you did the next time they land on you.

As to why they land on you yes, the sense there's food, could be a salty liquid (sweat, I'm talking about sweat you guys). It's their instincts that make them go where the food is.

4 hours ago
pm_me_gnus

Do you mean why do they keep landing on you, when you are the one who keep swatting them away? If that's your question, do you have any evidence that they understand that you are one swatting them away?

4 hours ago
TyhmensAndSaperstein

I've also thought about this! My thought has always been - isn't self-preservation more powerful than anything else for all living creatures? shouldn't they sense danger and immediately think "ok. not here. time to go somewhere else."? yet they keep returning over and over. I'm totally confused by their behavior.

3 hours ago
Chance_Bee5456

I mean you would not fly constantly and would want to land somewhere once in a while if you were a fly weren't you?

5 hours ago
critical_hit_misses

I've noticed that flies will annoyingly bash against windows and circle rooms for hours. However once hit with a blast of raid will often instantly exit through a door or window. So they know how to get out, they just choose not to.

4 hours ago
mrnikkoli

Fly: "why do humans constantly swat at me when I am constantly landing on them again?"

4 hours ago
pishposh421

They are attracted to the CO2 we give off. They don’t perceive humans as a threat and they taste with their feet, so they are going to stick with their mission despite your swatting. They want to eat what is on our skin - oils, dead skin cells, all that good stuff left from sweat. When they are biting it’s females going for blood, literally. They need the iron and protein for egg making/laying.

4 hours ago
Alpha_Majoris

Humans have a different time frame than flies. You are on your bike, cycling across town. You want to cross a street. You see a car coming from the left that you hadn't noticed. The car is 30 meters away and driving 30 km/h. You have ample time to cross the street or stop and step back. The car passes you. You continue on your way.

For the fly, your hand is just like that car. Before it arrives at its destination, the fly has left and has another target in view.

3 hours ago
Over-Winter-2917

Dimitri Martin once said. There’s not much difference between swatting a fly, and applauding a fly.

2 hours ago
betta-believe-it

Follow up question: how do they fly in squares? Like, for real 90* cuts on their corners.

2 hours ago
blankblank

Their whole life is 30 days. Would you give a damn about much if you only had 30 days to be alive?

2 hours ago
t3rmi

Why people constantly try to swat flies and fail when they constantly land on them? Are they stupid?

2 hours ago
Wadsworth_McStumpy

The fly lands on you because you seem like you might be food. If you swat at it, it flies away, forgets about the whole thing, and lands on you again because you seem like you might be food. Flies have no memory to speak of, so it won't remember that you swatted at it. It will keep trying until something else distracts it or until you kill it.

"Keep trying to get food until you die" is a valid lifestyle for a fly, because they really don't care all that much about dying. The fly has a million brothers and sisters, and if 99.999% of them get killed before they can reproduce, that still leaves enough for the next generation of flies.

(Yes, a typical housefly can have a million offspring. We developed reason and tool use, they developed making a whole lot more flies.)

1 hour ago
jenkag

flies dont have a memory like we do. if you swat at them, they might go into an "emergency fly anywhere" mode, but they will very quickly return to their default mode of operation: "seek sustenance" (which is actually more to do with locating water, which we are chalk full of).

1 hour ago
Epicjay

They don't have brains like people do. They're essentially operating on pure instinct. They can't learn that their actions have consequences.

58 minutes ago
j_cruise

Your second assumption is incorrect. Curiosity implies intelligence. Flies do not have that. They are not curious in the same way Roombas are not curious. They are essentially biological machines programmed to find food, reproduce, and avoid immediate danger. They do not have memories and they cannot think.

26 minutes ago
Artful_Dodger_1832

Many years ago I saw an articled that science expert were done on this subject. It was determined that flies were simply assholes.

22 minutes ago
BlueMaxx9

To put it in perspective, if a Human brain is an iPhone, a Fly brain is the little electronic sensor that detects your hand under the soap dispenser in a public restroom. Their little brains can do the same basic sorts of functions our brains do, but on a much smaller scale, and usually in a much simpler way.

If you are bored and have a few minutes to spare, go search up the 'Drosophilia Flight Simulator'. Some science hippies built a system to glue a fly to some senors and then trick it into thinking it was actually flying by moving a screen with some simple shapes on it around in response to the forces the sensors detected...and the flies seemed perfectly happy to move around this way like they were actually flying. The video of this thing in operation is worth the couple minutes of time to watch!

6 minutes ago