What are those little insects flying around the trash can at home? Flies? No.

When the trash can at home has not been emptied for a few days, we will find some small flying insects around it. If you look closely, you will find that their appearance is very similar to flies, but they are smaller. Are they babies of flies? Don't worry, they are not flies, and their appearance is not without benefits.

The insects hovering around the trash can are actually called "fruit flies". Although fruit flies and flies are only one letter apart and look very similar, the two are not very closely related. When classifying animals, they are classified in the order of phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. For example, humans and chimpanzees belong to the superfamily Hominoidea, while macaques belong to the family Cercopithecidae. Since they have parted ways at the "family" level, the relationship between monkeys and humans is actually relatively distant. Fruit flies and flies also belong to different families. Flies belong to the "Muscidae" family, while fruit flies belong to the "Drosophilidae" family.

Since fruit flies and flies are relatively distantly related, their living habits are quite different. Whether in terms of eating or living, the two are very different.

Let's talk about eating first. As we all know, flies are not picky eaters. Whether it's in the kitchen, the meat stall, around the trash can, or even in the toilet, you can see flies. It can be said that as long as the taste is strong enough, there is nothing that flies won't eat. It is precisely because of this that flies usually carry a large number of bacteria, which makes them a messenger of disease, so we cannot tolerate flies. In order to eliminate them, our ancestors invented a special tool from a very early time: the fly swatter, which has been passed down to this day. With the advancement of science and technology, various high-tech fly-killing tools and drugs have been iteratively updated. People hate flies, so "hate the house and the crow", and also bring this hatred to fruit flies, who makes them look alike.

Although fruit flies and flies look similar, their eating habits are very different. The reason why fruit flies are called fruit flies is because they only eat fruits and have no interest in other garbage and biological feces.

So you will never see fruit flies in the toilet. They only appear in orchards, fruit stalls, and around trash cans containing melon peels and fruit cores. So as long as there are melon peels and fruit cores in your trash can at home, fruit flies will come in droves soon. Why do melon peels and fruit cores attract more fruit flies the longer they are in the trash can? Because fruit flies are experts in drinking alcohol. When melon peels and fruit cores stay in the trash can for a long time, they will begin to ferment, and the product of fermentation is wine, which is quite attractive to fruit flies. It is precisely because fruit flies are picky eaters that they are not as dirty as flies, and in a sense, the appearance of fruit flies at home is a good thing.

Fruit flies are picky eaters, so in order to find what they want to eat, their sense of smell is very keen. Because of this, fruit flies are very sensitive to indoor air quality, especially the harmful gases produced by decoration materials and furniture. If the indoor air quality does not meet the standards, fruit flies will not patronize you even if you have a bucket full of rotten fruit.

After talking about food, let's talk about housing. In terms of living conditions, flies are also not particular. They can lay eggs wherever there is food, but fruit flies are not like this. Fruit flies still have requirements for living conditions. They will only lay eggs in two places, one is the surface of rotten fruit, and the other is inside fresh fruit. Among many fruits, fruit flies especially favor apples, peaches, bayberries, grapes and cherries. These fruits basically have a common feature, that is, the skin is soft, so now you should know what the little bugs you occasionally eat in fruits are. That's right, they are fruit fly larvae.

Since fruit flies are very particular about their food and accommodation, their larvae are also very clean, so there is no need to worry about this.

In fact, fruit flies are not only harmless to humans, but have also made outstanding contributions to the progress of human science and technology, because fruit flies are one of scientists' favorite experimental organisms. Why do scientists have a special liking for fruit flies? Because fruit flies have three characteristics: easy to raise, short life cycle, and strong reproductive ability.

The life span of a fruit fly is only about 30 days. From the time it is injected into the fruit in the form of an egg, it takes less than a day to hatch. After hatching, it only takes 4 days to pupate. After living in the form of a pupa for 4 days, it will become an adult fruit fly. This adult fruit fly only needs 8 hours to get married and have children. A fruit fly can lay more than 400 eggs in its short life cycle. It seems a pity if such a strong reproductive ability is not used for experiments. Now we all know that chromosomes are the carriers of genes, and this conclusion was drawn through observation and research on fruit flies.

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