Imagine this scenario: You're at a gathering and are just about to eat your sandwich. You Suddenly spot a fly headed your way, landing on your food with support from its complex eyes and antennae.
ScienceAlert described the fly as having managed to escape the hitting, lands on the food, and then appears to throw up on it.
It may appear gross, although the fly might be just "airing out its own digested food," this report specified or spitting on the food itself.
Most of the more than 110,000 identified fly species don't have teeth, and thus, they cannot chew solid food. Their mouthparts are similar to a spongy straw.
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Some Flies on Liquid Diet
Once the flies have landed on the food, they have to release digestive juices to have it liquefied into a predigested, "slurpable" soup that can be swallowed. Meaning, some flies are on a liquid diet.
For more food to fit their stomachs, some flies try to decrease the liquid they have already consumed.
Essentially, they throw up food into vomit bubbles to dry it out a bit. Once there has been evaporation of some water, the flies can eat this more concentrated food.
Humans do not have to do all the spitting and vomiting to get nutrients out of the food. However, they generate a digestive juice in their saliva, an enzyme also known as "amylase," which predigest some sandwich bread while chewing.
'Amylase'
The amylase breaks down starch that one cannot taste into simple sugars like glucose, which can be tasted. That's the reason bread is getting sweeter the longer it's chewed.
Not known to many, flies can taste the food without their mouths. As soon as they land on the food, they use receptors on their feed to determine if they are on something nutritious.
Notice that a fly rubs its legs together, like a hungry customer preparing to consume a meal. This is known as "grooming," in which a fly essentially cleans itself and may clean and taste sensors as well, on the bristles and fine hair of its feet, to understand better what is in the food it is has landed on.
Should We Throw the Food Flies Have Landed On?
The moment flies touch down on the sandwich, that's possibly not the only thing it has landed on that particular day.
Flies frequently sit on gross stuff, like a dumpster or decaying food, rich in microbes. The microbes can hitch a ride and, if the fly stays put long enough, it will land on the meal.
This is much more harmful than saliva since some microbes can result in illnesses, such as cholera and typhoid.
However, if the fly does not stay longer than a couple of seconds, the chances of microbes transferring are low, and the food is probably fine.
Not Bad at All
As the study specified, spitting on food and transmitting diseases sounds disgusting, although flies are not bad.
Flies belong to an essential group of pollinators, and numerous plants need flies to help with reproduction.
Moreover, these insects are a good source of food for other creatures, such as spiders, birds, lizards, and frogs, and thus, they are a vital part of the ecosystem.
Some flies provide medical uses, as well, as indicated in a Materials Today report. For instance, doctors use blowfly maggots, the young, immature flies, to eliminate decaying tissue in wounds.
Originally published in The Conversation, this report specified that the maggots emit antiviral and antimicrobial juices that have helped researchers develop new treatments for infection.
More essentially, the fruit flies one may have seen flying around a ripe banana fruit in the kitchen have been invaluable in biological study.
Biomedical researchers from different parts of the world examine fruit flies to explore causes and cures for illnesses, not to mention genetic disorders, a similar report, also from Materials Today specified.
Related information on flies landing on food is shown on NerdAlert's YouTube video below:
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Check out more news and information on Insects in Science Times.
