A Fly Doing A Somersault: Award-Winning 16 Second Video

I’m one of those people who doesn’t kill very many bugs. I’ll squish a mosquito or stomp on a roach, but for just about every other kind of bug, I try to help them to safety when they end up in my domain. If I encountered one of these 8 Biggest Baddest Fugliest Bugs, that might be a different story, but for the most part, I think bugs are just trying to live their lives like everything else. They don’t mean us any harm.

I especially don’t swat flys (I still don’t know if it’s “flys” or “flies“). A fly only has a lifespan of 15-30 days. Even if he’s annoying me, the way I look at it, he’s on borrowed time anyway. There’s no need for me to cause him a violent death by fly swatter when he’s about to die anyway.

For those of you who like to swat a fly every now and then, have you ever noticed how many times they seem to miraculously escape your swat? Have you ever wondered how they can do that? Apparently when a fly gets startled, he does a somersault in mid-air. While he’s in that maneuver, he’s able to regain his control and get it together so to speak. For the first time ever, you can now see this in a video clip. If you’d like to read about how this award-winning slow motion video was captured, visit New Scientist. This is fascinating!

Via: [Popsci]