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.
In: 145
The TL;DR answer:
Flies are really small
So, information needs to travel smaller distances in the fly’s body than in the person’s body
Therefore, the fly reacts to stuff faster
There are other factors such as the fly’s compound eyes letting it see way more than a human can but this is the main one
Fly brains are very simple and have a reaction time of 30ms. Compared to human average of 250.
They also can feel changes in air pressure when you get near them
Use a spray bottle and water, or even soapy water if you want. Most inspects will drown almost immediately
When i was younger i always tryed to catch them with my hands.
Sounds imposible but i was pretty good at it.
The trick was to wait until they landed and are cleaning themselfs. At that moment i placed my open hand as close as posible at theire backside.
Slowly creeping as close as posible, hand looks like a fleshy wall that slowly comes closer. When at abouth 5 to 7 cm away (2 – 3 inches)
Than i bring tention to my muscles in arm and hand and prepair to make an explosive release of energie all focused on the 1 move of going towards the fly and closing hand.
If done right you catch the fly in your hand, it might takes practise but 8 out of 10 flys i would catch that way and than threw them outside the window or door.
Its all abouth going fully chill and relaxed just before moving explosively.
46 now and still able to do it. But more like 7 out of 10.
If you have one of those vacuum cleaners that you pull around, with a long hose attachment, you can vacuum them out of the air quite easily. They never get out of the dust bag later.
I’ve got an uncle with the superpower of killing flies with a toothpick. He just slowly creeps up to them and skewers them with it. I don’t understand the science of it.
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.
Hit them with a quick spray of Simple Green, Windex, 409, or whatever else you got (not bleach, obviously) around.
when you swing for a fly, aim just in front of it. They always take off forwards so you can “lead” the target and hit them 99% of the time.
Also, their reaction speed is 30-50 milliseconds while yours is probably 500 ms on a good day. Their compound eyes let them literally perceive light 4 times faster than a human can. They are basically evolutionarily adapted to win the hand slap game until they can procreate.
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