How drain flies manage to almost never get washed away.

ABSTRACT: Drain flies, Pshycoda spp. (Order Diptera, Family Psychodidae), commonly reside in our homes, annoying us in our bathrooms, kitchens, and laundry rooms. They like to stay near drains where they lay their eggs and feed on microorganisms and liquid carbohydrates found in the slime that builds up over time. Though they generally behave very sedately, they react quite quickly when threatened with water. A squirt from the sink induces them to fly away, seemingly unaffected, and flushing the toilet with flies inside does not necessarily whisk them down. We find that drain flies' remarkable ability to evade such potentially lethal threats does not stem primarily from an evolved behavioral response, but rather from a unique hair covering with a hierarchical roughness. This covering, that has never

SUBMITTER: Speirs NB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7575561 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature