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Flies are annoying, especially on warm weekends spent outdoors. They land on us and our food, they buzz in our ears, and some of them bite. Mosquitos are a kind of fly, and they transmit some of the world’s deadliest pathogens. But consider for a minute that you may not really know flies. Or rather, the flies you likely do know — the houseflies, the mosquitos, the gnats — are just a tiny, tiny fraction of an enormous group of insects that is, on the whole, quite wonderful. It also supports our very existence.
No, a fly didn’t write this. Flies do, however, have advocates among humans, and recently, one got to me.
Last fall, I met Emily Hartop, a scientist who studies flies, at a natural history museum in Berlin. A lifelong bug lover, Hartop told me the world is home to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of fly species. And they fill pretty much every ecological role imaginable. Flies are superb pollinators, shrewd parasites, and exceptional janitors — they literally clean up our shit.
Flies are also anatomical marvels, Hartop said. In addition to a pair of wings, they have special balancing organs called halteres that function like gyroscopes, allowing flies to turn sharp corners, hover, and land upside down. “They’re called flies for a reason,” Hartop said. “They are amazing aerial acrobats.”
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