Why do flies rub their paws: the mystery of the Diptera conspiracy
Probably everyone noticed that when a fly sits on some surface, it begins to rub its paws against each other, as if cleaning them. Is personal hygiene so important for these insects crawling through garbage containers and rotting food?
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How fly paws are arranged and what is their uniqueness
The fly really cleans the body in this way, and especially the limbs. But she does this not because of excessive cleanliness, but because of her physiological nature.
What do flies use their limbs for?
- Thanks to such wonderful paws, the arthropod perfectly keeps on a mirror, glass and any other smooth surface.
- It can easily move along the ceiling and walls upside down and penetrate into the most inaccessible corners of the room.
- In addition, the insect uses the bristles located on the pulvilles as an organ of touch and smell, determining the taste and edibility of the product.
- When the paws inform the fly that it has landed on an edible substance, the individual tastes it with a kind of tongue in the form of a libella pad. That is, first the pest tries food with its feet, and only then with its proboscis and sucking blades.
Why does a fly rub its paws: the main reasons
During such tastings and movements, the fly paws quickly collect dust and dirt that breaks adhesion to the surface.
In order to crawl further unhindered, the insect is forced to constantly clean the tips of its legs from accumulated foreign particles, stimulating the release of a sticky secretion from carbohydrates and lipids.
So they keep the vital organs in working condition. The whole hygiene procedure consists of several parts. First, the flies clean their forelimbs, then they wash their heads and hind legs with these paws, and at the end they wipe their wings.
What happens if you degrease the legs of flies
Looking closely at the area of the surface along which the insect moved, one can notice brownish traces in the form of a chain of specks highlighting the location of outgrowths-pulvilles. Entomologists have found that they are composed of triglycerides.
If you remove the fat from the bristles of the fly's legs, immersing them briefly in hexane, the movement of the arthropod will be impossible.
What dangerous diseases do flies carry on their paws?
Despite regular cleansing of limbs, flies are the main carriers of parasitic and infectious diseases. As a result of research, up to 6 million bacteria were found on the surface of only one individual, and as many as 28 million in its intestines.
It is worth noting that in settlements with unsanitary conditions, up to 500 million microorganisms can be on flies. Pathogenic microbes get to the paws of an insect from organic waste and from them to food. By eating such food, a person becomes infected or poisoned. Among the dangerous diseases carried by flies are:
- tuberculosis;
- polio;
- salmonellosis;
- brucellosis;
- diphtheria;
- tularemia;
- dysentery;
- typhoid fever;
- cholera;
- gospel's disease;
- paratyphoid;
- conjunctivitis.
More pests on their paws spread the eggs of worms, the infection of which also occurs through food. It has been proven that it was the flies that in certain periods of time became the sources of serious epidemics.
For example, in the 112th century in Russia they caused XNUMX mass diseases of jaundice, and in Cuba and Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American War they caused an outbreak of dysentery and typhus.
Even now, blinding trachoma, caused by certain types of flies, affects about 8 million people every year.
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