If you've seen "A Bug's Life", then you know flies don't make very good company. Houseflies play an important ecological role in breaking down and recycling organic matter. Solid foods are softened with saliva before being sucked up. Adult houseflies are diurnal and rest at night. If inside a building after dark, they tend to congregate o
If you've seen "A Bug's Life", then you know flies don't make very good company. Houseflies play an important ecological role in breaking down and recycling organic matter. Solid foods are softened with saliva before being sucked up. Adult houseflies are diurnal and rest at night. If inside a building after dark, they tend to congregate on ceilings, beams, and overhead wires, while outdoors, they crawl into foliage or long grass, or rest in shrubs and trees. Some houseflies hibernate in winter, choosing to do so in cracks and crevices, and even the folds of curtains. When it's time to reproduce, the female housefly usually mates only once and stores the sperm for later use. She lays batches of about 100 eggs on decaying organic matter such as food waste, carcasses, or feces. These soon hatch into legless white larvae, known as maggots. Adult flies normally live for two to four weeks (unless hibernating during the winter). Each female can lay up to 500 eggs in her lifetime. They can carry pathogens on their bodies and in their feces, contaminate food, and contribute to the transfer of food-borne illnesses. During the second world war, the Japanese worked on entomological warfare techniques. The bombs developed consisted of two compartments, one with houseflies and another with a bacterial slurry that coated the houseflies prior to release. The Baoshan bombing produced epidemics that killed 60,000 people in the initial stages, reaching a radius of 120 miles which finally took a toll of 200,000 victims. Any occupying Japanese troops would have been vaccinated in advance.
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