Can Flies Lay Eggs in Your Drink?
WouterFlies are disgusting insects. Their bodies are made of pheromones, which can damage your drink. A female fruit fly can release up to 2.4 nanograms of pheromone every hour. Researchers from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala, Sweden, first isolated this pheromone.
Flies feed on the remains of animals and sometimes lay their eggs on these bodies. They use these liquids to hydrate themselves. They also like the sweet taste of the liquid. This is also safe for larvae. However, if you eat the eggs, you risk getting a nasty stomachache or diarrhea. Even worse, you could get a health inspection for your restaurant and lose customers.
Fruit flies are tiny, cotton-like insects. Their eggs can be difficult to detect with the naked eye, and their larvae feed on overripe fruit and sugary liquids. They can even lay their eggs inside your drink. Fruit flies can cause a lot of discomfort and diarrhea if you accidentally swallow them. Health and safety inspectors will raise alarms if they notice fruit flies in food or drinks.
A recent study showed that fruit flies can lay their eggs in alcohol-soaked environments. When female and male fruit flies were present, the larvae preferred the alcohol-soaked food over food that was unsoaked in alcohol. This finding led researchers to hypothesize that the flies were reacting to pheromones from alcohol. To test this hypothesis, the researchers tested two groups of mutated fruit flies. These flies had no olfactory or visual senses, so they did not distinguish alcohol from non-alcohol foods.
