Why Do Flies Land On You
Flies are annoying, buzzing around you and landing on your skin or the food you’re in the process of eating. No matter how often you swish them away, they return, why?
The typical house fly will land on you or your food to suck up a meal. On-the-other-hand, biting files, like horse flies, will literally bite you, sucking your blood for a meal, just like a mosquito. However, the most common and annoying fly is the house fly. They will spit saliva on potential food to dissolve it and suck it up as a meal, and you are the meal. Let me explain, house flies are attracted to the nutrients found on your skin. These are proteins, carbohydrates, sweat, sugar, salt, or an open wound exposing some blood. Since the house fly doesn’t have teeth or a needle to penetrate the skin, they suck their food through a trunk like nose or snout. So, when a fly lands on you, it immediately regurgitates saliva, composed of enzymes, on to your skin. The enzymes begin the digestive process, and the fly simply sucks up the liquified meal.
For example, when you use soap to clean a floor, the soap immediately breaks the bonds within the “dirt” making it easy to clean. If you just used water, the cleaning action is minimal. The fly’s saliva, with enzymes work like the soap, breaking the food material into a liquified meal.
How Does A Fly Know If There’s Food? House flies are constantly hunting for food, landing on various objects. They have a superior sense of smell and huge eyes allowing them to scan the area for landing sites. Upon landing, the fly’s feet have little hairs that allow them to adhere to almost any surface. When a fly comes upon a potential food source, it lands, sticks its snout on the food source and further investigates with its feet. That’s why a fly will walk on you, it’s investigating a possible food source. Once the fly recognizes a food source, it spits out the saliva and quickly sucks up the liquified meal. If a fly lands on a surface with no food, it doesn’t secrete any saliva and simply moves on.
The human body is a great food source for flies. There’s sweat, proteins, salts, sugars, dead skin, and it’s a smorgasbord. Flies are also looking for places to lay their eggs, a warm cozy place. If you have an open wound, the fly will attempt to get a meal and even lay some eggs in the open wound area. Wounds can consist of deadly bacteria and viral substances making the fly a dangerous biohazard. Additionally, flies walk through infested areas of fecal material, rotting carcasses, and garbage materials thereby picking up numerous pathogens that can infect your body. Flies are known to carry over 100 dangerous diseases, including cholera, typhoid, tuberculosis, and anthrax.
Animals too are a great source of food for the flies. Unlike us humans, animals typically have a hairy external coat on their bodies making it a little more challenging for the fly to get a quick meal. However, the animals eye area is susceptible to excreting liquids. Therefore, flies will typically congregate around the eyes of animals for a quick and easy meal.
If you notice a fly buzzing around your head, it’s attracted to the oils. The oil in your hair is one of the essential food items for flies. Therefore, keep your hair clean to help prevent flies from making a meal off your head and even laying eggs amongst your hair follicles.
When a fly lands on you, it’s virtually impossible to catch it. Their response time is ten times greater than us humans. By the time your hand hits your skin the fly is long gone. So, its best to make an environment that doesn’t attract flies. Flies love warm and humid environments, do you best to make your environment non appealing to flies. Use a fly repellant like lemongrass or citronella and refrain from using fruit scented hair products.
Keep this in mind, if a fly lands on your food shall you eat that food? Something to think about, now that you have an understanding about why flies land on you. Should you have questions, please contact us at HomeHealthHazards.com.