Fly Facts

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This post is targeted for the younger audience and those young at heart. Since the book is about a pesky fly, I thought I would share some fun facts about flies that you and your kids might be interested in researching.

Fun Facts

While many people think flies are pesky – they are buzz, buzz, buzzing in our ears and landing or crawling on our sweets. But, those flies are important food for other animals, such as frogs, fish, spider, and birds. If there weren’t any flies, these animals wouldn’t have food and there would be fewer to them.

Did you know there are plants that eat flies? The Venus Flytraps are a plant that feeds on flies. Here is a great video of a Venus flytrap capturing a fly (parents might want to view this before showing it to their children) -- https://youtu.be/qzILn3rWTwc

Flies can do amazing things. They have sticky feet and can climb on your ceiling and stick to almost any surface. They can fly backwards, up and down, and side to side.

Flies can also taste with their feet. When a fly lands on your tasty lunch, they will walk around to taste their food before eating it.

Flies can see behind them. Flies have eyes that provide them with nearly a 360-degree field of view and that allows them to see behind themselves. This special vision ability helps them look out for danger.

This Can’t Be True

cute-fly.png

Moving on to a bit more whimsical and not necessarily true things. Have you ever heard about the old lady who swallowed a fly? Here is a video that will tell you the story in a song -- https://youtu.be/oNwmzDlyCt8

There are also a number of books about the old lady who swallowed a fly. If you would like to find out more about this fun poem go to Wikipedia -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Was_an_Old_Lady_Who_Swallowed_a_Fly

Have you ever heard any fly riddles? Here is one example:

I buzz by your screen door,
I land on your clothes,
I sample your lunch,
And I tickle your nose.
I fly by so fast and I’m so hard to swat.
Some call me a pest and dislike me a lot!
What am I? (Fly)

Do you think your friends could solve this riddle if you told it to them?

If you like to color, here is a site that has coloring pages of flies and other insects -- http://www.supercoloring.com/coloring-pages/insects/fly

So tell me what you know about flies? Do you have any fun facts to share? Do you have a favorite book about flies? Do you have any fly riddles? Share them with me in the comments. Looking forward to hearing from you.