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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (June 27, 2018)
10 Wednesday, June 27, 2018 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon Tales from a Sisters Naturalist by Jim Anderson The fly on the windshield So, there I was, fastening my seat belt in my Toyota 4Runner as my wife, Sue. was about to drive us into Sisters for dinner at a good pal’s home. As we pulled out on to Central Street at Sun Mountain I looked out ahead of us to see what was going on and a tiny image on the surface of the windshield caught my eye. It was a flesh fly feeding on the eggs and remains of a butterfly that was splattered on the windshield. Even after Sue had pulled out onto Central Street and began to build up a little speed, the fly stuck tight to that lus- cious butterfly debris. In my old age, my sense of taste is slowly leaving me, but I could almost share the delicious taste of the but- terfly guts that fly was slurp- ing up. In fact, it was enjoy- ing the food so much (if flies can do that) it just hung on, and I asked Sue to stop while I shot that picture. When we started out again and commenced going faster the fly hung on tighter as we got out on Highway 20 and built up more speed. Curious about how long it could hang on, I began watching the speedometer — and the fly. At 30 mph it slowly swung into the slip- stream, its tongue swivel- ing on the butterfly smear. When we hit 40 the fly’s wings began to vibrate in the slipstream, and the fly’s labellum held fast. But things turned out sad for the poor fly when we hit 48 mph; the speeding slip- stream had enough force to break the bond between tongue and the tasty butterfly debris on the windshield and I saw the fly fly off the sur- face and vanish behind us. I can only imagine the poor fly’s disappointment as it broke loose and lost that delicious meal. Consider all the tools a fly has with which to feed: If you take a close look at a fly’s head, you’ll see lumps and bumps stick- ing out which include two small, antenna-like feelers called maxillary palps that help the fly to taste its food. The end portion of the pro- boscis is called the labellum, and terminates in a spongy, somewhat sticky mouth part, with which the fly slurps up its food. Houseflies and flesh flies are rulers of the insect-scav- enging world, but they have a lot of predators just wait- ing for a chance to pick them out of the air, or slurp them up. Spiders, frogs, lizards, bigger flies, birds, predatory wasps all love to eat them by the hundreds, plus you and I Need a DENT -AL Check Up? Repair experts standing by... Most M Mo o st t repairs ai i in n under d e an h hour • F Free estimates stim t im t Mobile service available • Paintless dent removal trying to smash them with folded-up newspaper and fly swatters. To help overcome these obstacles and dangers, houseflies depend on two excellent sensory awareness tools and — as many of us have observed — top-notch aerial maneuverability. Like all insects, a house- fly’s body is covered with a hard exoskeleton of chi- tin and is divided into three sections, or parts: head, tho- rax and abdomen. A pair of large, complex eyes covers most of the housefly’s head, and each eye is composed of 3,000 to 6,000 facets of simple eyes. Houseflies can’t focus in on the particulars of the environment around them. Instead, their faceted eyes provide an excellent mosaic view of everything to the left, right, front and above the fly, especially if it is a moving object. Imagine a casino security guard, constantly scanning a bank of video monitors to see who might be cheat- ing, causing a drunken dis- turbance or suspiciously loitering, especially look- ing at key areas for poten- tial threats. It’s much the same with the eyes of flies — only they have thousands of monitors that allow them to detect even the slightest of movements from nearly every direction. Houseflies also boast three additional simple eyes called ocelli, located between the two compound eyes. Think of the ocelli as a kind of navigational device or compass, letting the fly know which way is up. The fly accomplishes this by keeping track of and moving toward areas of light. This is why we often find houseflies buzzing around windows. But how does the fly get to its food? That is accomplished with the aid of their amazing legs, feet that enable them to walk on vertical sheets of glass and wings with which they can fly upside down and sideways, which is another story… WE’RE NOT JUST TIRES! We do... Alignments, Brakes, Shocks, Struts, CV Joints, U Joints, Axle Shafts, Drivelines, & Tire Siping ...not only cars, but trailers, too! DAVIS TIRE 541-549-1026 Serving Sisters Since 1962 188 W. 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