🚨 ARTHROPOD OF THE DAY 🚨

House flies feed and breed in the things we revile: garbage, animal dung, sewage, human excrement, and other nasty substances. Musca domestica is probably the best known and most common of the insects we collectively refer to as filth flies. In suburban or rural areas, house flies are also plentiful in fields where fish meal or manure is used as fertilizer, and in compost heaps where grass clippings and rotting vegetables accumulate.

House flies have sponge-like mouthparts, which are good for soaking up liquefied substances but not for eating solid foods. So, the house fly either seeks out food that is already in puddle form, or it finds a way to turn the food source into something it can manage. This is where things get kind of gross. When a house fly locates something tasty but solid, it regurgitates onto the food (which may be your food, if it's buzzing around your barbecue). The fly vomit contains digestive enzymes that go to work on the desired snack, quickly predigesting and liquefying it so the fly can lap it up.

How do flies decide something is appetizing? They step on it! Like butterflies, house flies have their taste buds on their toes, so to speak. Taste receptors, called chemosensilla, are located at the far ends of the fly's tibia and tarsa (in simpler terms, the lower leg and foot). The moment they land on something of interest – your garbage, a pile of horse manure, or perhaps your lunch – they start sampling its flavor by walking around.