How Many Eyes Do Flies Have

It’s springtime which means sunshine, picnics and flies. But this episode might make you think twice about reaching for that fly swatter. Flies are amazing creatures that have the fastest visual systems in the world, use gyroscopes for precision flying, and can see almost 360 degrees.

To understand why a fly is so unique, just look into their eyes. A fly has two large eyes that cover most of their head. Each eye consists of at least 3,000 individual lenses called ommatidia. With all of these “simple eyes” flies can’t focus on a single object like we do. Instead, they see the world as a kind of mosaic.

This makes them really good at spotting quick moving objects like a fly swatter. And their field of view is almost a full 360 degrees. So no use sneaking up from behind. Dr. Michael Dickinson is a bio-engineer and neuroscientist at Cal Tech and a leading expert on American flies.

On this episode he shares his love for flies and explains what makes them so special – from their eyes to their lightning fast neurological systems. So next time you might want to reach for that magnifying glass rather than the fly swatter – you’ll be amazed at what you see. Recommended links from Chris Morgan : Dickinson Lab Michael Dickinson: How a fly flies Understanding the neurological code behind how flies fly The Lab: Gwyneth Card + Escape Behavior THE WILD is a production of KUOW in Seattle in partnership with Chris Morgan and Wildlife Media.

It is produced by Matt Martin and edited by Jim Gates, It is hosted, produced and written by Chris Morgan. Fact checking by Apryle Craig, Our theme music is by Michael Parker,

How many eyes does a house fly have?

Description – Adult houseflies are usually 6 to 7 mm ( 1 ⁄ 4 to 9 ⁄ 32 in) long with a wingspan of 13 to 15 mm ( 1 ⁄ 2 to 19 ⁄ 32 in). The females tend to be larger winged than males, while males have relatively longer legs. Females tend to vary more in size and there is geographic variation with larger individuals in higher latitudes. Housefly mouthparts, showing the pseudotracheae, semitubular grooves (dark parallel bands) used for sucking up liquid food The mouthparts are specially adapted for a liquid diet; the mandibles and maxillae are reduced and not functional, and the other mouthparts form a retractable, flexible proboscis with an enlarged, fleshy tip, the labellum.

• This is a sponge-like structure that is characterized by many grooves, called pseudotracheae, which suck up fluids by capillary action,
• It is also used to distribute saliva to soften solid foods or collect loose particles.
• Houseflies have chemoreceptors, organs of taste, on the tarsi of their legs, so they can identify foods such as sugars by walking over them.

Houseflies are often seen cleaning their legs by rubbing them together, enabling the chemoreceptors to taste afresh whatever they walk on next. At the end of each leg is a pair of claws, and below them are two adhesive pads, pulvilli, enabling the housefly to walk up smooth walls and ceilings using Van der Waals forces, A housefly wing under 250x magnification The thorax is a shade of gray, sometimes even black, with four dark, longitudinal bands of even width on the dorsal surface. The whole body is covered with short hairs. Like other Diptera, houseflies have only one pair of wings ; what would be the hind pair is reduced to small halteres that aid in flight stability.

• The wings are translucent with a yellowish tinge at their base.
• Characteristically, the medial vein (M1+2 or fourth long vein ) shows a sharp upward bend.
• Each wing has a lobe at the back, the calypter, covering the haltere.
• The abdomen is gray or yellowish with a dark stripe and irregular dark markings at the side.

It has 10 segments which bear spiracles for respiration. In males, the ninth segment bears a pair of claspers for copulation, and the 10th bears anal cerci in both sexes. Micrograph of the tarsus of the leg showing claws and bristles, including the central one between the two pulvilli known as the empodium A variety of species around the world appear similar to the housefly, such as the lesser house fly, Fannia canicularis ; the stable fly, Stomoxys calcitrans ; and other members of the genus Musca such as M.

Does a fly have 5 eyes?

While you might think that the fly has two large eyes, it actually has five eyes. The two that we can see are its compound eyes. Then, there are three smaller eyes on the top of the head. The smaller eyes are called ocelli and while the compound eyes are complex, the ocelli simply process movement.

Which insect has the most eyes?

3. Dragonflies (Anisoptera) – Some species of dragonfly have more than 28,000 lenses per compound eye, a greater number than any other living creature. And with eyes covering almost their entire head, they have nearly 360-degree vision too. Even in dim light geckos can see colour exceptionally well © Fivespots/Shutterstock.com

Can flies see 360 degrees?

Learn more – Flies look at the world in quite a different way than we do. Their eyes are made up of thousands of individual visual receptors called ommatidia, each of which is a functioning eye in itself. Therefore, a fly’s vision is comparable to a mosaic, with thousands of tiny images that converge together to represent one large visual image.

The more ommatidia a compound eye contains, the clearer the image it creates. A fly’s eyes are immobile, but their position and spherical shape give the fly an almost 360-degree view of its surroundings. Fly eyes have no pupils and cannot control how much light enters the eye or focus the images. Flies are also short-sighted — with a visible range of a few yards, and have limited color vision (for example, they don’t discern between yellow and white).

On the other hand, a fly’s vision is especially good at picking up form and movement. Because a fly can easily see motion but not necessarily what the moving object is, they are quick to flee, even if it is harmless. A Q&A with Nikon Small World winner Dr.

• Razvan Cornel Constantin.
• What is the subject matter of your winning image and why did you choose this image? It is a closeup of a housefly decaying eye.
• The image doesn’t just show the structure of a compound eye but also what happens when the eye dries and the individual “cells” start to change color.

It’s always a challenge to shoot at high magnification, and I thought this is a result worth sharing. The pattern is also very photogenic. What are the special techniques and/or challenges faced in creating this photomicrograph? For this picture I used focus stacking, which is challenging at high magnification because of the vibration of the camera and the rest of the equipment.

• At 50:1 the working distance is small for reflected light, so getting enough light onto the subject is always a struggle.
• Also, getting it diffused in such a way that the individual lenses on the eye reflect it in a pleasing way without losing detail was tricky.
• What is your primary line of work? I make my living as an automotive engineer, but when I get home and pick up my camera, that’s when the job stops and the passion begins.

How long have you been taking photographs through a microscope? What first sparked your interest in photomicrography? I’ve been using microscopes for almost four years, gradually increasing the magnification as I got more experienced. I’ve always had a passion for wildlife, especially insects.

As soon as I could afford it, I got a camera and macro lens. While shooting macro you always crave for more magnification and that’s why I got into photomicrography. Do you tend to focus your microscopy toward a specific subject matter or theme? If so, why? I can’t say that I have a specific subject, I find that almost any subject has at least a few interesting poses when put under a microscope at high magnification.

As long as you can’t see it with the naked eye you always get that wow factor. : Housefly compound eye pattern | 2019 Photomicrography Competition

Does a fly have 3000 eyes?

It’s springtime which means sunshine, picnics and flies. But this episode might make you think twice about reaching for that fly swatter. Flies are amazing creatures that have the fastest visual systems in the world, use gyroscopes for precision flying, and can see almost 360 degrees.

1. To understand why a fly is so unique, just look into their eyes.
2. A fly has two large eyes that cover most of their head.
3. Each eye consists of at least 3,000 individual lenses called ommatidia.
4. With all of these “simple eyes” flies can’t focus on a single object like we do.
5. Instead, they see the world as a kind of mosaic.

This makes them really good at spotting quick moving objects like a fly swatter. And their field of view is almost a full 360 degrees. So no use sneaking up from behind. Dr. Michael Dickinson is a bio-engineer and neuroscientist at Cal Tech and a leading expert on American flies.

On this episode he shares his love for flies and explains what makes them so special – from their eyes to their lightning fast neurological systems. So next time you might want to reach for that magnifying glass rather than the fly swatter – you’ll be amazed at what you see. Recommended links from Chris Morgan : Dickinson Lab Michael Dickinson: How a fly flies Understanding the neurological code behind how flies fly The Lab: Gwyneth Card + Escape Behavior THE WILD is a production of KUOW in Seattle in partnership with Chris Morgan and Wildlife Media.

It is produced by Matt Martin and edited by Jim Gates, It is hosted, produced and written by Chris Morgan. Fact checking by Apryle Craig, Our theme music is by Michael Parker,

How do flies see humans?

Faster vision – Flies have compound eyes. Rather than collecting light through a single lens that makes the whole image – the strategy of human eyes – flies form images built from multiple facets, lots of individual lenses that focus incoming light onto clusters of photoreceptors, the light-sensing cells in their eyes.

Essentially, each facet produces an individual pixel of the fly’s vision. A fly’s world is fairly low resolution, because small heads can house only a limited number of facets – usually hundreds to thousands – and there is no easy way to sharpen their blurry vision up to the millions of pixels people effectively see.

But despite this coarse resolution, flies see and process fast movements very quickly. Tiny hexagonal ‘facets’ take in light, and the photoreceptors beneath them process it in quick flashes. Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, CC BY We can infer how animals perceive fast movement from how quickly their photoreceptors can process light.

1. Humans discern a maximum of about 60 discrete flashes of light per second.
2. Any faster usually appears as steady light.
3. The ability to see discrete flashes depends on the lighting conditions and which part of the retina you use.
4. Some LED lights, for example, emit discrete flashes of light quickly enough that they appear as steady light to humans – unless you turn your head.

In your peripheral vision you may notice a flicker. That’s because your peripheral vision processes light more quickly, but at a lower resolution, like fly vision. Remarkably, some flies can see as many as 250 flashes per second, around four times more flashes per second than people can perceive.

• If you took one of these flies to the cineplex, the smooth movie you watched made up of 24 frames per second would, to the fly, appear as a series of static images, like a slide show.
• But this fast vision allows it to react quickly to prey, obstacles, competitors and your attempts at swatting.
• Our research shows that flies in dim light lose some ability to see fast movements,

This might sound like a good opportunity to swat them, but humans also lose their ability to see quick, sharp features in the dark. So you may be just as handicapped your target. When they do fly in the dark, flies and mosquitoes fly erratically, with twisty flight paths to escape swats.

Does a fly have 1000 eyes?

They have two prominent compound eyes composed of 3,000 to 6,000 tiny simple eyes (lenses) working together to make one visual masterpiece. A House fly also has three extra simple eyes centrally between the two prominent eyes.

Which animal has 10 eyes?

Facts About Horseshoe Crabs and FAQ The American horseshoe crab is a common sight on Florida’s beaches. Horseshoe crabs are “living fossils” meaning they have existed nearly unchanged for at least 445 million years, well before even dinosaurs existed.

• Horseshoe crabs are not actually crabs at all, they are much more closely related to spiders and other arachnids than they are to crabs or lobsters! There are four species of horseshoe crabs still around today.
• Only one species, Limulus polyphemus, is found in North America along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts from Maine to Mexico.

The other three species are found in Southeast Asia. Despite existing for hundreds of millions of years, horseshoe crabs are nearly identical to their ancient relatives. This is because their body structure is extremely effective for survival, think, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” Horseshoe crabs have a tank-like structure consisting of a front shell called the prosoma, a back shell called the opisthosoma, and a spike-like tail called a telson.

Some people think horseshoe crabs are dangerous animals because they have sharp tails, but they are totally harmless. Really, horseshoe crabs are just clumsy and they use their tail to flip themselves back over if they get overturned by a wave.* Though the horseshoe crab’s shell is hard, it is very sensitive to the world around it.

The crabs are especially sensitive to light. They have 10 eyes, a pair of compound eyes on the prosoma, and “photo receptors” in other areas, primarily along the tail. *Never pick up a horseshoe crab by its tail, as it can harm the animal. Instead, gently pick it up by both sides of the prosoma using both hands. Horseshoe crabs are known to gather in large nesting aggregations, or groups, on beaches particularly in the mid-Atlantic states such as Delaware, New Jersey and Maryland in the spring and summer, where their populations are largest. Horseshoe crabs can nest year-round in Florida, with peak spawning occurring in the spring and fall.

When mating, the smaller male crab hooks himself to the top of the larger female’s shell by using his specialized front claws, and together they crawl to the beach. The male fertilizes the eggs as the female lays them in a nest in the sand. Some males (called satellite males) do not attach to females but still have success in fertilizing the female’s eggs by hanging around the attached pair.

Most nesting activity takes place during high tides around the time of a new or full moon. Horseshoe crab larvae emerge from their nests several weeks after the eggs are laid. Juvenile horseshoe crabs look a lot like adults except that their tails are smaller.

• The young and adult horseshoe crabs spend most of their time on the sandy bottoms of inter-tidal flats or zones above the low tide mark and feed on various invertebrates,
• Why are horseshoe crabs important? Horseshoe crabs are an important part of the ecology of coastal communities.
• Their eggs are the major food source for shorebirds migrating north, including the federally-threatened red knot.

These shorebirds have evolved to time their migrations to coincide with peak horseshoe crab spawning activity, especially in the Delaware and Chesapeake Bay areas. They use these horseshoe crab beaches as a gas station, to fuel up and continue their journey. Many fish species as well as birds feed on horseshoe crab eggs in Florida. Adult horseshoes serve as prey for sea turtles, alligators, horse conchs, and sharks. Horseshoe crabs are also extremely important to the biomedical industry because their unique, copper-based blue blood contains a substance called “Limulus Amebocyte Lysate”, or “LAL”. This compound coagulates or clumps up in the presence of small amounts of bacterial toxins and is used to test for sterility of medical equipment and virtually all injectable drugs. That way, when you get a vaccine you know it hasn’t been contaminated by any bacteria.

Anyone who has had an injection, vaccination, or surgery has benefited from horseshoe crabs! Additionally, research on the amazing and complex compound eyes of horseshoe crabs has led to a better understanding of human vision. Horseshoe crabs are also used in several fisheries. The marine life fishery collects live horseshoe crabs for resale as pets in aquariums, research subjects, or as educational specimens, and both the American eel and whelk fisheries use horseshoe crabs as bait along many parts of the Atlantic coast.

Threats to horseshoe crabs and research efforts Horseshoe crab numbers are declining throughout much of their range. In 1998, The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission developed a Horseshoe Crab Fishery Management Plan that requires all Atlantic coastal states to identify horseshoe crab nesting beaches.

What animal has best vision?

Eagles – Best Eyes in the Animal Kingdom – Visual acuity is defined as the ability to focus on images from a given distance, and is measured on the 20/20 scale. The human standard of “perfect” vision is 20/20. One with 20/20 vision can see clearly at a distance of 20 ft. To put that into perspective, an eagle has the visual acuity of 20/5 – meaning that it can see at 20 feet what a human with 20/20 vision would need to be 5 feet away from to see.

By this standard, an eagle’s visual acuity is 4 times stronger than ours. With the sharpest distance vision of all creatures, they are able to see and focus in on prey as small as a mouse from up to 3 miles away. In addition to their unprecedented ability to see clearly at very far distances, eagles have near panoramic vision, a heightened sense of color vision, and can see UV light.

While “good” eyesight is largely dependent upon a creature’s unique need for their specific habitat, by human standards it is safe to say that the eagle has the best eyesight in the animal kingdom.

Can a fly hear?

Abstract – Studying the auditory system of the fruit fly can reveal how hearing works in mammals. Research Organism: D. melanogaster, Human, Mouse Related research article Li T, Giagtzoglou N, Eberl D, Nagarkar-Jaiswal S, Cai T, Godt D, Groves AK, Bellen HJ.2016. The myosin motor proteins play a variety of roles inside cells, such as transporting cargo around the cell and maintaining the structure of the cell’s internal skeleton. Myosins also make important contributions to our sense of hearing, which can be revealed by studying conditions such as Usher syndrome (a severe sensory disorder that causes congenital deafness and late-onset blindness).

• In humans and other mammals, two myosin proteins called myosin VIIa and myosin IIa have been linked to deafness, but we do not understand how these proteins interact.
• Now, in eLife, Andrew Groves, Hugo Bellen and co-workers – including Tongchao Li of Baylor College of Medicine as first author – report evidence of a conserved molecular machinery in the auditory organs of mammals and the fruit fly Drosophila ( Li et al., 2016 ).

Furthermore, the screen identified an enzyme called Ubr3 that regulates the interaction of the two myosins in Drosophila, Auditory organs convert the mechanical energy in sound waves into electrical signals that can be interpreted by the brain. In mammals, this conversion happens in “hair cells” in the inner ear.

These cells have thin protrusions called stereocilia on their surface, and the tips of these stereocilia contain ion channels called MET channels (which is short for mechanoelectrical transduction channels). Five proteins associated with the most serious form of Usher syndrome – known as USH1 – are key components of the molecular apparatus that enables the MET channels to open and close in response to mechanical force.

The USH1 proteins are restricted to the tips of the stereocilia, where they form a complex ( Figure 1 ; Prosser et al., 2008 ; Weil et al., 1995 ). Two of the USH1 proteins work together to join the tip of each stereocilium to its next-highest neighbor, forming bundles of stereocilia ( Kazmierczak et al., 2007 ). How sound is detected in mammals and Drosophila, ( A ) Schematic diagram showing a bundle of three stereocilia protruding from a mammalian hair cell. The deflection of the stereocilia by sound waves results in the opening of the MET channels (pale blue cylinders) and the generation of an electrical signal that travels along sensory neurons to the brain.

1. The motor protein myosin VIIa transports USH1 proteins to maintain the structural integrity of stereocilia.
2. Figure adapted from Figure 1e, Richardson et al.
3. Richardson et al., 2011 ).
4. B ) Flies use antennae made up of three segments to detect sound.
5. The schematic diagram on the left shows the second segment: there are MET channels for each neuron (outlined in green) and myosin II and myosin VIIa are enriched at the tip of scolopale cells, where USH1 proteins, Ubr3 and Cul1 form a protein complex.

A Pcdh15 protein in the USH1 complex anchors the tip of scolopale cell to the cap cell. When a sound wave hits the antenna, the joint between the second and the third segment is deflected (right panel) and the resultant stretching of the second segment opens the MET channels.

1. This depolarizes the sensory neurons, causing them to signal to the brain.
2. Figure adapted from Figure 1b, Boekhoff-Falk and Eberl ( Boekhoff-Falk and Eberl, 2014 ).
3. Flies do not have ears as such, but they are still able to detect sounds through their antennae.
4. Despite the auditory organs of flies and mammals having different structures, they work in a similar way.

In Drosophila, structures called scolopidia, which are found suspended in the second segment of the antenna, sense sound vibrations relayed from the third segment ( Figure 1 ). Cells called cap cells and scolopale cells anchor the tip of the scolopidia to the joint between the second and third segments.

The scolopale cells also secrete a protein to form the dendritic cap that connects a sensory neuron with the joint. This structure allows the mechanical forces produced by the sound waves to be transmitted to the neuron, activating the MET channels and causing the sensory neuron to produce an electrical signal.

Inactivating the gene that produces myosin VIIa causes the scolopidia to detach from the joint and causes the protein that forms the dendritic cap to be distributed abnormally ( Todi et al., 2005 ; Todi et al., 2008 ). Now, Li at al. – who are based at Baylor, the Texas Children’s Hospital, the University of Iowa and the University of Toronto – show that inactivating the gene that encodes the enzyme Ubr3 has the same effect.

Ubr3 is a type of E3 ubiquitin ligase. These enzymes regulate a number of cell processes by helping to join small proteins called ubiquitins onto other proteins. Using a forward genetic screen, Li et al. found that Ubr3 is enriched in the tips of scolopidia, particularly at the ends of the sensory neurons and in the scolopale cells closest to the joint between the second and third segments.

Li et al. show that Ubr3 and another E3 ubiquitin ligase called Cul1 negatively regulates the addition of a single ubiquitin to myosin II. This means that the loss of Ubr3 increases the rate of the “mono-ubiquitination” of myosin II, which leads to stronger interactions between myosin II and myosin VIIa.

Importantly, the mono-ubiquitination of myosin II and the interaction between myosin II and myosin VIIa helps to ensure that they (and also the fly equivalents of Usher proteins) localize correctly to the scolopidial tip. Thus, Ubr3 is crucial for maintaining the structure and function of scolopidia.

Overall, the results presented by Li et al. argue that a conserved model underlies hearing in both Drosophila and mammals. In this model, the negative regulation of mono-ubiquitination of myosin IIa (or myosin II in the case of Drosophila ) by Ubr3 promotes the formation of the myosin IIa-myosin VIIa complex (or the myosin II-myosin VIIa complex in Drosophila ).

1. The myosin complex then transports the USH1 protein complex to the tips of the stereocilia (or scolopidia) to establish the sound-sensing structure that enables the MET channels to work.
2. Using the power of fly genetics, Li et al.
3. Have identified new components involved in the development and function of auditory organs, and linked them to genes known to play a role in human deafness.

Undoubtedly, future studies of these deafness-related genes in the Drosophila auditory organ will bring more insights into the interplay among the molecules, including the USH1 proteins, that are important for hearing.

Do flies understand mirrors?

Quick facts: Flies have compound eyes that are sensitive to changing light patterns. For flies which happen to fly toward that water bag or hanging disc may get confused by the light refractions and reflection, the key thing to note is that they are only temporarily disoriented.

Do flies have lips?

How does the house fly eat? – Most flies have mouthparts that are best described as two sponge pads and a straw. Their lips have grooved channels that allow liquid to flow in from the two fleshy pads attached to the fly’s lower lip (the labella). Since they cannot chew, flies have to dissolve solid food into liquid, or at least into particles measuring 0.45 millimeters or less.

Why are fly eyes red?

Abstract – Many insect species have darkly coloured eyes, but distinct colours or patterns are frequently featured. A number of exemplary cases of flies and butterflies are discussed to illustrate our present knowledge of the physical basis of eye colours, their functional background, and the implications for insect colour vision.

1. The screening pigments in the pigment cells commonly determine the eye colour.
2. The red screening pigments of fly eyes and the dorsal eye regions of dragonflies allow stray light to photochemically restore photoconverted visual pigments.
3. A similar role is played by yellow pigment granules inside the photoreceptor cells which function as a light-controlling pupil.

Most insect eyes contain black screening pigments which prevent stray light to produce background noise in the photoreceptors. The eyes of tabanid flies are marked by strong metallic colours, due to multilayers in the corneal facet lenses. The corneal multilayers in the gold-green eyes of the deer fly Chrysops relictus reduce the lens transmission in the orange-green, thus narrowing the sensitivity spectrum of photoreceptors having a green absorbing rhodopsin.

How much memory does a fly have?

A backup copy in the central brain: How fruit flies form orientation memory: Gaseous neurotransmitters play an important role in the short-term orientation memory of Drosophila; scientists decode biochemical processes Insects have a spatial orientation memory that helps them remember the location of their destination if they are briefly deflected from their route.

Researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have examined how this working memory functions on the biochemical level in the case of Drosophila melanogaster, They have identified two gaseous messenger substances that play an important role in signal transmission in the nerve cells, i.e., nitric oxide and hydrogen sulfide.

The short-term working memory is stored with the help of the messenger substances in a small group of ring-shaped neurons in the ellipsoid body in the central brain of Drosophila, Flies form a memory of locations they are heading for. This memory is retained for approximately four seconds.

This means that if a fly, for instance, deviates from its route for about a second, it can still return to its original direction of travel. “This recall function represents the key that enables us to investigate the biochemistry of working memory,” said Professor Roland Strauss of JGU’s Institute of Developmental Biology and Neurobiology.

The researchers are particularly interested in learning how a network in an insect’s brain can build such an orientation memory and how exactly the related biochemical processes function. Working on her doctoral thesis, Dr. Sara Kuntz found to her surprise that there are two gaseous neurotransmitters that are involved in information transmission.

These gaseous messenger substances do not follow the normal route of signal transmission via the synaptic cleft but can diffuse directly across the membrane of neighboring nerve cells without docking to receptors. It was already known that, for the purposes of memory formation, nitric oxide (NO) is essential for the feedback of information between two nerve cells.

What has now emerged is that NO also acts as a secondary messenger substance in connection with the amplification of the output signals of neurons. This function of nitric oxide can apparently also be assumed by hydrogen sulfide (H2S). Although researchers were aware that this gas plays a role in the control of blood pressure, they had no idea that it had another function in the nervous system.

1. It has long been assumed that hydrogen sulfide was harmful to the nervous system.
2. But the results of our research show that it is also of importance as a secondary messenger substance,” explained Strauss.
3. We were absolutely astonished to discover that there are two gaseous neurotransmitters that are important to memory.” Biochemical signal transduction pathway for visual working memory Strauss and his colleagues postulate that both neurotransmitters together with cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) form the perfect storage media for short-term memories.

They presume the process functions as follows: The fruit fly sees an orientation point and moves in its direction, at which point nitric oxide is formed. The nitric oxide stimulates an enzyme that then synthesizes cGMP. Either the nitric oxide itself or cGMP accumulate in a segment of the doughnut-shaped ellipsoid body that corresponds to the original direction taken by the fly.

1. The ellipsoid body is located in the central complex of the insect brain and is divided into 16 segments, rather like slices of cake, each of which represents a particular spatial orientation.
2. Given that a Drosophila fly deviates from its path because it loses sight of its initial orientation point and temporarily becomes aware of another, that fly is then able to get back on its original course because a relatively large quantity of NO or cGMP has accumulated in the corresponding ellipsoid body segment.

However, all of this only functions under one condition. The memory is only called up if the fly does not see anything in the interim, the fly must also lose sight of the second orientation point. “The recall function only becomes relevant when there is nothing more to see and readily acts as an orientation aid for periods of up to four seconds,” explained Dr.

• Sara Kuntz, primary author of the study, adding that this seemingly short time span of four seconds is perfectly adequate to enable a fly to deal with such a problem.
• The ellipsoid body retains the backup copy to span any such brief interruptions.” There is no point in having a working memory with a longer duration as objects that have been selected as orientation points are not necessarily anchored in place but may themselves also move.

: A backup copy in the central brain: How fruit flies form orientation memory: Gaseous neurotransmitters play an important role in the short-term orientation memory of Drosophila; scientists decode biochemical processes

Do house flies have a blind spot?

Failed to save article – Please try again If an outdoors, socially-distanced gathering is part of your Thanksgiving plans, beware of uninvited guests. I don’t mean friendly neighbors who might invite themselves to a piece of pie. A blowfly feeds on an apple with its straw-like proboscis. (Josh Cassidy/KQED) I’m talking about flies. Buzzing around curiously, they’ll help themselves to whatever food you leave unattended. As they walk all around they could spread hundreds of types of bacteria they carry on their legs. So you try sneaking up on one and it skedaddles. Why, oh why, is it so hard to swat a fly? Now you see me, now you don’t. A blowfly escapes a swatter in the nick of time. (Josh Cassidy/KQED) Flies are formidable opponents, with an arsenal of tools they carry all over their bodies. For starters, their hair and antennae help a fly sense us as we walk up to them. A fly can see you coming from nearly every angle. (Josh Cassidy/KQED) Not only can they feel us, they can see us too. “They have a very small blind spot in the back of their head,” Fox said, “but a lot of flies can see almost 360 degrees around their heads.” And a fly’s eyes and tiny brain process information 10 times faster than human eyes and brains. Quick, sharp turns help a fly dodge your swatter. These aerobatics are possible thanks to a pair of tiny club-shaped limbs called halteres, nestled below the fly’s two wings. (Josh Cassidy/KQED) Once the fly escapes your swatter and is in the air, it’s in its element and your job is even tougher.

Seen up close and slowed down, a fly’s aerobatics are impressive: It makes razor-sharp turns with ease and at great speed. What makes this possible is a pair of modified wings called halteres, a Greek word for dumbbell, which describes their shape. All of the 200,000 species of flies that scientists have described have a pair of halteres and a pair of wings.

(That includes mosquitoes, which, wouldn’t you know it, are flies too.) Most other insects — bees, butterflies, dragonflies — have four wings and no halteres. The relatively large halteres of a crane fly are easier to spot than most. The halteres are the small, club-shaped parts beating below the fly’s wings. (Jessica Fox/Case Western Reserve University) As a fly turns, its halteres sense the rotation. In a split second, neurons at the base of the halteres send information to the fly’s muscles to steer its wings and keep its head steady.

“Houseflies flap their wings about 200 times per second, which means they really only have five milliseconds to figure out what the next wingbeat is going to be like. And if you’re using vision that takes too long to do,” Fox said. “They really need a mechanical receptor in order to be able to sense their body rotations and correct them on the timescale that they need.” Though flies are a pesky pest and we are constantly in their pursuit, they likely evolved halteres to escape other animals besides us.

“Flies hang out on the backs of cows,” said Sane. “The tail of a cow trying to flick insects off, it’s likely to kill the fly if it doesn’t fly off fast.” Lizard tongues are also quick-moving threats. And then there’s flies themselves. In lightning-fast chases, males compete for the ability to mate.

These chases are among the most aerobatic chases that I’ve ever seen; there’s nothing that comes even close,” said Sane. “And if flies did not turn very fast they’ll get caught and slammed to the ground.” When researchers remove a fly’s halteres, it can no longer control its flight. It loses all sense of where its body is in space.

In slowed-down videos, flies without halteres give the impression of being drunk. A fly whose halteres have been removed by researchers can’t control its flight and falls down. (Katie Jordan, Alex Yarger and Jessica Fox/Case Western Reserve University) “They don’t seem to know; they just keep flapping,” said Fox. “They just keep pitching and rolling and eventually they fall. A fly can stay out of reach by hanging upside down on the ceiling. (Josh Cassidy/KQED) It hangs there with tiny hooks and sticky pads on its feet. The pads, called pulvilli, have microscopic hairs that excrete a liquid that sticks to the surface under pressure, sort of like suction. The pads on a fly’s feet, called pulvilli, have microscopic hairs that excrete a liquid that sticks to the surface. The photo on the right shows an extreme close-up of the hairs. (Stanislav Gorb/University of Kiel, Germany) Despite the fly’s slick tools, Sane recommends one trick next time you try to nab one.

How many times can a fly see?

Faster vision – Flies have compound eyes. Rather than collecting light through a single lens that makes the whole image – the strategy of human eyes – flies form images built from multiple facets, lots of individual lenses that focus incoming light onto clusters of photoreceptors, the light-sensing cells in their eyes.

• Essentially, each facet produces an individual pixel of the fly’s vision.
• A fly’s world is fairly low resolution, because small heads can house only a limited number of facets – usually hundreds to thousands – and there is no easy way to sharpen their blurry vision up to the millions of pixels people effectively see.

But despite this coarse resolution, flies see and process fast movements very quickly. Tiny hexagonal ‘facets’ take in light, and the photoreceptors beneath them process it in quick flashes. Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, CC BY We can infer how animals perceive fast movement from how quickly their photoreceptors can process light.

• Humans discern a maximum of about 60 discrete flashes of light per second.
• Any faster usually appears as steady light.
• The ability to see discrete flashes depends on the lighting conditions and which part of the retina you use.
• Some LED lights, for example, emit discrete flashes of light quickly enough that they appear as steady light to humans – unless you turn your head.

In your peripheral vision you may notice a flicker. That’s because your peripheral vision processes light more quickly, but at a lower resolution, like fly vision. Remarkably, some flies can see as many as 250 flashes per second, around four times more flashes per second than people can perceive.

• If you took one of these flies to the cineplex, the smooth movie you watched made up of 24 frames per second would, to the fly, appear as a series of static images, like a slide show.
• But this fast vision allows it to react quickly to prey, obstacles, competitors and your attempts at swatting.
• Our research shows that flies in dim light lose some ability to see fast movements,

This might sound like a good opportunity to swat them, but humans also lose their ability to see quick, sharp features in the dark. So you may be just as handicapped your target. When they do fly in the dark, flies and mosquitoes fly erratically, with twisty flight paths to escape swats.

What is a house fly weakness?

How can you make your home a no-fly zone? From hairspray to superglue, choose your weapon By Updated: 02:32 BST, 18 August 2008 Every year it’s the same. No, not the awful August weather – but the problem of how to get rid of those wretched flies that are an indelible part of the British summer. Swat: What is the best way to get rid of flies? TWO-PRONGED APPROACH Despite a head that can rotate nearly full-circle and two gigantic eyes that are made up of 4,000 lenses, all of which operate independently, the average housefly has a number of weaknesses in its highly attuned evasion capabilities.

• Flies cannot fly off at an angle and have to fly straight upwards before being able to head off in another direction.
• This leaves them vulnerable for the first few inches of their flight and easier to trap.
• Another weakness is the fly’s inability to respond when confronted with two threats at the same time.

Therefore, to take advantage of this, simply roll up two copies of the Daily Mail and with one in each hand, swat the fly with both at the same time from opposite directions. TWO TURN HEAT UP.OR DOWN Although flies love hot weather, they don’t like it too hot – or too cold, for that matter.

• Anything above 38C (100F) and they’re slowing down, and if the temperature rises above 47C (116F) it is fatal (as it is for many humans, too).
• However, if the temperature drops to 9C (48F), a normal housefly will be unable to fly, and temperatures below 7C (44F) usually prove fatal to the buzzing pests – whose average lifespan is between 20 and 30 days.
• So if you don’t mind a chilly home, reach for the thermostat.
• VACUUM CLEANER Best suited to attacking flies on walls.

1. Despite incredibly evolved evasion reaction abilities, flies do not have any motion detectors on their backs, rendering them vulnerable to rearguard ambush.
2. Once you are close enough, the vacuum cleaner will do its work and suck the fly into the machine.
3. VENUS FLYTRAPS
4. A Carnivorous plant whose natural habitat is the swamp, this is the ultimate natural fly-killing machine.

Its hinged leaves are covered with tiny hairs and when a fly touches more than one of these, while on the leaf, the two sides of the leaf snap shut in under 0.1 seconds, trapping the fly.

• The cage then becomes a sort of stomach and the fly is digested over the next ten days with enzymes secreted by the plant.
• However, Venus Flytraps average only three captures during their lifespan.
• ELASTIC BANDS
• An Effectively aimed and flicked elastic band should stun any stationary fly – particularly those hard-to-get types that sit on the ceiling thanks to the sticky substance secreted by glands on their hairy legs.
• HAIRSPRAY
• Hairsprays work by creating a liquid elastic that ‘freezes’ and stiffens your hair.
• A similar process occurs when you spray it on a fly.
• Its wings – which normally beat between 200 and 330 times a second – are frozen, rendering it a grounded and easy target.
• ALTERNATIVE SPRAYS Instead of buying expensive insect spray, make your own using an empty pump-action spray bottle, some water and a spot of dishwashing liquid.

The detergent in the solution disrupts the fly’s breathing apparatus, leaving it disorientated and an easy target. A dash of vinegar or window cleaner is an effective alternative to detergent. TRADITIONAL FLY-SWATTER

1. Simple and effective, this succeeds primarily because of its mesh of holes which both increase speed and reduce air resistance during the swat and also minimise the air disruption that otherwise would warn the fly that an object is approaching.
2. The ‘fly bat’ (as it was then called) was invented by Kansas schoolteacher Frank Rose in 1905, after the state was overrun by the insects.
3. The modern battery-powered version, which resembles a tennis racket, delivers an abrupt and deadly electric shock to any fly it comes into contact with.
4. HAND-CLAPPING

This is the oldest method of fly-killing and requires speed, skill and practice. It remains the most effective and satisfying solution.

• Flies are extremely agile in the air, so you have to be quick.
• The key is to clap higher than where you think the fly is heading.
• Even if you miss, the sonic boom from your clap should momentarily stun the fly, giving you a second chance.
• Once the fly has been killed, don’t forget to wash your hands.
• FLYPAPER ALTERNATIVES Instead of buying commercial flypaper, try using a strip of paper with a dot of superglue on it and a few small pieces of banana, biscuit or cake.
• The fly will be drawn to the food (they have a liking for sugar and protein) and once it lands on the strip will begin to feast.
• As houseflies can eat only liquid food, the fly will spit out saliva onto the food to break it down and will then suck it up through its funnel-like proboscis, found at the base of the head.
• While it is doing this the superglue will be doing its work, trapping the fly on the paper.

MATCHBOX Approach your quarry slowly from behind with a large matchbox. Place it open over the fly, thus trapping it, then close the matchbox. Take outside and release the fly. OPEN DOOR AT TWILIGHT Those humane souls who prefer not to hurt a fly can still be rid of them by waiting until twilight and then simply opening their front or back door and letting them out.