Bugs can be useful?but most of the time, they’re annoying?especially flies. Scientists have finally figured out why they’re so hard to swat!
It turns out that flies (unlike most humans) have an incredible ability to plan ahead. They can quickly see where a threat is coming from, so they can dodge our swatters before they reach them.
In BBC News, Matt McGrath quotes researcher Michael Dickinson as saying, “We’ve found that when the fly makes planning movements prior to take-off, it takes into account its body position at the time it first sees the threat. Our experiments showed that the fly somehow ‘knows’ whether it needs to make large or small postural changes.”
Does McGrath have any advice on how to succeed in swatting them? It’s best to creep up on them, since they can’t register slow movements. BBC quotes McGrath as saying, “It’s best to aim a bit forward of its location and try and anticipate where the fly will jump when it first sees your swatter.”
Art credit: freeimages.co.uk
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