Why it's so hard to swat a fly

videoman

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The brains of flies are wired to avoid the swatter, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

At the mere hint of a threat, the insects adjust their preflight stance to flee in the opposite direction, ensuring a clean getaway, they said in a finding that helps explain why flies so easily evade swipes from their human foes.

"These movements are made very rapidly, within about 200 milliseconds, but within that time the animal determines where the threat is coming from and activates an appropriate set of movements to position its legs and wings," Michael Dickinson of the California Institute of Technology said in a statement.

"This illustrates how rapidly the fly's brain can process sensory information into an appropriate motor response," said Dickinson, whose research appears in the journal Current Biology.

Dickinson's team studied this process in fruit flies using high-speed digital imaging equipment and a fancy fly swatter.

In response to a threat from the front, the fly moves its middle legs forward, leans back and raises its back legs for a backward takeoff. If the threat is from the side, the fly leans the other way before takeoff.
The findings offer new insight into the fly nervous system, and lends a few clues on how to outsmart a fly.

"It is best not to swat at the fly's starting position," Dickinson said. Instead, aim for the escape route.

Dickinson, a bioengineer, has devoted his life's work to the study of insect flight. He has built a tiny robotic fly called Robofly and a 3-D visual flight simulator called Fly-O-Vision.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen, editing by Will Dunham and Xavier Briand)

So a problem that has plagued for ages.....now solved!
Peace

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jonnyappleweed

I've been a fly swatter for years.
They can't jump past a bullet...
I had read something when I was a kid about flys jumping backwards when swatted at.
So I just learned to swat behind them,and I have a 98% kill rate now...

Peace

__________________
Aging is GODs way of telling us there's no time to waste...
WAS MOSE'S REALLY SPEAKING TO A BURNING BUSH???
OR WAS IT ONLY SMOKING???

Pappy

I was in Sicily, while a jarhead. Our avionics shop was a semi-trailer that had an awesome ac system. First thing in the morning, the shop was hot as,...well, you know. Anyway, the numerous flies were quite active; annoyingly so. Once the ac kicked in, the flies began to slow down. They would land on the wall and not be in any hurry to leave the warmer surface. So, someone in the shop, came up with the idea of tying a couple of rubber bands together, as a weapon. It was great fun, to splatter flies all over the walls. When it got really chilly, if one did try to fly, they could be taken out of the air by simply grabbing them. Some got shot with the rubber bands. The last entry in the log book, every night, looked something like this:

Sigonella Fly Wars

Marines-286 Flies-0



Pappy

__________________
You can't believe anything I say, and only half of what you see me do.

4kaan4

So I guess that made everyone there an ace, right? LOL

Later,
4kaan4

__________________
I am an incorrigible, pathological fantasizer fabricating illusionary amusements for various individuals. In other words I lie like a politician. I refuse to break the law because I intend to live my life till the day I die!

wb456

As Marines we have a responsibility to keep our senses sharp to be ready to defend our country.

SEMPER FI

wb456

Thanx
I've got quite a morphine buzz going and now I can't stop giggling