Why Are Flies So Hard To Swat? - video Dailymotion

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9 months ago

One secret is their specialized hind wings. High-speed cameras show that flies' modified hind wings help with their speedy takeoffs.

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00:00Why are flies so hard to swat?

00:05A fly buzzes past your head and lands nearby.

00:09You grab a fly swatter and you strike.

00:12But no matter how quick you are, the fly escapes unharmed.

00:15What is it that makes flies so hard to swat?

00:19Flies have many adaptations that give them extra speed,

00:23maneuverability, and perception,

00:25making them very, very good at detecting and evading your swats.

00:30And new evidence shows that one of the ways they do that

00:33is with vibrations of stick-like structures with a knob at the end, called halteers.

00:39When halteers vibrate during flight,

00:41they're sensing body rotations and transmitting information to the flies' wings,

00:46which helps flies to stabilize their bodies.

00:48However, houseflies also vibrate their halteers while walking,

00:53but scientists didn't know why.

00:55So they looked at houseflies and their close relatives

00:58to see if oscillating halteers affected how the flies launch into the air.

01:03Scientists filmed flies during takeoff using high-speed cameras,

01:07recording footage at speeds up to 3,000 frames per second.

01:11They found that houseflies and other closely-related flies

01:14launch themselves around five times faster than other flies

01:18and with just one wingbeat.

01:20When scientists removed those flies' halteers,

01:23it took them longer to take off,

01:25and some took a nosedive and crash-landed.

01:28But halteers aren't the only secret weapon in a fly's evasive arsenal.

01:33Fruit flies can change course in under one one-hundredth of a second,

01:37about 50 times faster than an eye can blink.

01:40Flies also have exceptional vision, which helps them react to a threat,

01:44and adjust their trajectory within milliseconds before takeoff.

01:50With all these built-in advantages,

01:52it's no wonder that the fly you're trying to swat can easily escape and just buzz off.

01:59Aerodynamic flies.

02:01Just another one of life's little mysteries.

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