What Flies When It Is Born
WouterWHAT FLIES WHEN IT IS BORN? It’s a simple rhyme, and it’s an excellent introduction to the world of insects. It is one of the oldest rhymes ever, and explains the basic principles of flight. Besides the fact that it grows larger when you take it away, WHAT FLIES WHEN IT IS BORN also has a mouth.
Flies are insects that belong to the class Diptera. They go through three stages of development, including immature stage (called maggot), larval stage (called pupa), and adult stage (also called tsetse). Different species of flies hatch at different places, but they all have common features, such as their size.
Female houseflies lay their eggs in warm manure. The eggs hatch, transforming into maggots, larvae, and pupae, before emerging as adult houseflies. The tsetse flies develop a very different life cycle. Their larvae hatch from the eggs laid by the female, which means they will live inside their mother’s feces.
Tsetse flies have no breasts, which means they don’t milk their young. Instead, their tiny tubes carry the milk to the larva, which sucks it up with the straw-like tubes on its head. The milk is a mix of fats and proteins and functions similar to human breast milk. This makes it very taxing for the mother.
