– how are flies so darn fast to react?!

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Just spent too many (unsuccessful) minutes hunting a fly in my kitchen. I tried to encourage it out the door but it clearly wants to stay.

It’s goading me and it’s bloody massive. Like bumblebee size.

I went at it with a magazine, kitchen roll and dishcloths but all were fruitless.

I read they perceive time differently so is it that they see me in slow motion? How does something operate in the world around them at a different ‘base speed’ if that is the case?

EDIT/UPDATE: thanks for all the comments. Some very cool and interesting things said that I’m going to follow up on. Not sure if it was the same one but a little while ago approached another behemoth of a fly with a white kitchen roll super slow and successful smushed it. Almost felt bad. Almost.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Perception of time, all living beings have a limited almost set amount of heart beats per life time, the faster your heart beats then your perception of time slows, the slower it beats the faster the perception. So if a human viewed how an elephant perceives time everything is sped up, like fast forward on a VHS etc but because a fly’s heart beats super quick and a human could view what they see it is in slow motion, hence why they can dodge mostly anything. There was a fascinating QED documentary (on the BBC) on it.

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