Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Why are the flies rubbing their legs?

I’ve read about an interesting article which was about a conversation between a kindergarten teacher and a child.
The conversation goes like this:

During recess, the teacher asked the children to wash their hands before having meals.
Teacher: “Firstly, wet both your hands, get some soap, then…”

Everyone followed the teacher carefully. Right at the moment, a fly flew by and landed on Andrew’s shoulder. He noticed that the fly was continuously rubbing its legs. He thought that flies wash their hands just the same as what they’re doing.
Andrew: “Teacher! Teacher! I know why flies won’t get sick even if they eat poop!”
Andrew successfully drew everyone’s attention on this.

Teacher: “Really? Why is that? Can you explain more?”
Andrew: “Because flies wash their hands just like we do!”
Everyone burst into laughter after hearing what Andrew had to say. But the teacher was stunned and had lost of words.


The story ends here without a proper ending, however, it has drawn my attention either! Due to curiosity, I really do wonder if that is true. Why would they rub their legs continuously? To satisfy my curiosity, I went to the kitchen and looked at the flies for that. It was astonishing that what Andrew said could be true! The flies do rub their legs continuously. Could Andrew be totally correct on this one? Why would they rub their legs? Is it really for cleaning purposes?

Here is some information I’ve found about this question:
For us, tasting can only be done with our tongue, where our receptors are located. But for insects like flies, their receptors are located on their feet. When we wish to try the taste of something, we put it into our mouth. On the other hand, when a fly wishes to taste on something, it had to touch and rub with its feet. When a fly reaches to a new environment, It tests the taste of the environment with its feet. But when they began licking their feet, they are actually trying to clean the receptors, getting rid of the previous taste so that they can move on with new ones.

When they’re rubbing their feet while walking, they’re trying to get the taste of different environment. This is it!
I’ve finally understood about this!

Here’s a question that came up to my mind after solving the previous one. Be prepared as there might be chances that the junior divisions would ask questions similar to this.


Question:
Flies always eat dirty food. But why won’t they fell sick even so?

Answer:
Actually, there are tonnes of bacteria on and in a fly’s body! But why wouldn’t they get ill?
This is because there is a protein enzyme found in the digestive system of a fly that is able to dissolve the dangerous bacteria. This keeps the fly away from the harming bacteria which prevented it from getting ill.

Even if so, there are still tonnes of bacteria on a fly’s body! We do not have the similar enzyme as a fly does. Thus, we would get ill if we eat something dirty. Please remember to cover all your food from flies. We had to sacrifice the food and threw them away if they happened to have stood on it, as they would leave bacteria on the food! Remember to wash your hands before meals.


Translated by,
Happy.

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Written at 1:25 AM by Paper Pilot.