Welcome to Bugging Out, the podcast where we look at the tiny creatures living all around us! I'm Chloe, and today we're talking about a backyard visitor you've definitely seen, the common fly. Joining us is insect expert, Caprina. Welcome, Caprina!

Thanks, Chloe! It's great to be here.

So, Caprina, I've noticed that whenever I have something sweet outside, like a jar of honey, flies show up almost instantly. How do they find it so fast?

Well, flies have a super-powered sense of smell. They can actually smell sweet foods from up to one hundred METERS away! That's the length of an entire soccer field.

Wow, that's incredible! So they smell the honey, zoom on over, and land right in it. But how do they know it's actually food once they get there?

This is my favorite weird insect fact: flies taste with their FEET! The very second they land on honey, the taste sensors in their feet tell them right away that they've found something delicious.

No way! [laugh] Taste sensors on their feet? Imagine walking on a giant cupcake to see what flavor it is!

Right? It sounds silly, but it's super efficient for them. Once they know it's yummy, they're ready to eat. But flies can't chew. They don't have teeth! Instead, they have a mouth like a straw called a proboscis. They use this proboscis to suck up liquids.

Ah, a pro-bos-cis! Got it. So they can only consume liquids, like flower nectar, fruit juice, and honey?

Exactly. But what if a fly finds something solid, like a sugar cube? Well, they have a pretty gross, but brilliant, solution. The fly will actually vomit a special digestive liquid onto the food. This liquid breaks down the solid food and turns it into a soupy mush that they can easily drink up.

Oh, yuck! [gasp] That is so gross, but honestly, pretty clever.

It is! And honey is actually one of the absolute BEST foods a fly can find. It's packed with the sugars and nutrients they need to survive. Flies use up a crazy amount of energy flying around, and sugar gives them that quick boost.

They really do seem to be buzzing around CONSTANTLY. Do they ever stop to rest, or do they just eat all day?

They have to eat almost constantly because they have a very fast metabolism. That's the rate at which their bodies burn through energy. They burn fuel so quickly that a single fly can eat its own body weight in food in just ONE day!

That's wild! If a human kid did that, they'd be eating about eighty pounds of food a day! [giggle]

It would be a non-stop buffet! And this isn't a new craving, either. Flies have been eating honey and sweet foods for millions of years, even back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

So, a giant T-Rex might have been shooing away the exact same kind of flies?

Absolutely! They've been sweet-tooth champions for ages.

That is so cool. Thank you so much for sharing all this awesome fly trivia, Caprina!

Anytime, Chloe. Keep exploring!