THE EXTRAORDINARY ABILITIES OF HOUSEFLIES TO ESCAPE DEATH

Does it surprise you to think that an animal can escape death, talk less of a housefly? Of course it shouldn’t. Remember the first science post on this blog that explained how fireflies escape danger, thanks to their wing speed and exceptional flying skills. Like fireflies, houseflies obviously have wing speed and flying skills, though they flap their wings at a much lesser speed than fireflies, that is 80 times per second, compared to fireflies that flap theirs 200 times per second.

However, this post is not about speed or flight skills. This is about surviving a death trap. So just picture the following scenario.

You used a local African broom to hit a housefly so that it doesn’t fly anymore, but you still manage to leave it alive so that you can punish it. You carry a condemned water bottle and fill it almost to the brim with water. After that, you picked up the weak fly, put it inside the water bottle (maybe even use a small stick to push the fly down the liquid to drown it since it will most times stay floating) and cover it tight. What would you expect to happen?

Of course, the expectation is that the housefly will drown and die. However, this is the shocking news from personal experience: your scheme to kill this fly will turn into an experiment! The housefly will survive longer than would you expect. How does it do it?

The houseflies are equipped with holes called spiracles through which they breathe air, just like our nostrils. These spiracles are a part of the trachea, the respiratory system of insects. But, unlike our nostrils, these spiracles can close tight for up to 5 hours to prevent things like dust and water from blocking the trachea. This is possible because of the amazing way these insects breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon-dioxide. During these 5 hours, something else will happen that might surprise you.

The housefly will form a bubble all around itself while gently walking around the corners of the bottle. This bubble will keep it dry even while inside this water trap. All these abilities help the housefly forge its temporary SCUBA or Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus and survive your attempt to kill it for up to 5 hours!