How Flies Dodge A Swat

June 18, 2009

Sick of hearing about fly swatting yet? No? Good! Cause I asked Gwyneth Card - a scientist who studies fly flight - how flies stay alive when you're trying your hardest to kill them. She says:

Our research found that flies are experts at jumping away from an incoming swat.  When a fly detects a threat, its first reaction is to stop whatever it as doing and freeze.  The fly next carefully repositions it's legs into the perfect escape posture.  Finally, once positioned, the fly performs a rapid jump, propelling itself into the air and away from the swat.  What is remarkable about this behavior, and what makes flies so hard to swat, is that the fly can perform this entire escape sequence is less than 200 ms -- litterally in the blink of an eye!

Here's video of the flies doin' their fly thing: