CHEMISTRY

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Chemical compounds with unusual names

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chemical_compounds_with_unusual_names

BIOLOGY

​The Fly Trap, by Fredrik Sjöberg, ISBN-10:184614776X / ISBN-13:978-1846147760

'I realised I had to write my book for people not interested in flies'.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jun/14/fredrik-sjoberg-hoverflies-the-fly-trap

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To know a fly, humorous (if cruel) tale by famous biologist Vincent Dethier, ISBN 0816222401

The cartoon on page 18 accurately depicts female eyes further apart than male eyes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Dethier 

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To love a fly Late October 2019, a small house fly flew into the top floor flat where I was staying. I noticed it on the patio doors and assumed it wanted to go out so I opened the doors but instead it flew deeper inside. Despite leaving the door open for some appreciable time it stayed well away. The next day when the sun was out I noticed it on the door again and I again offered it a way out but again it refused, even though I left it open a good half hour. It was obvious it didn't want to go out so I gave up opening the door, which suited me as I hate the cold too.

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I'm quite fond of flies having spend a significant amount of time marvelling at their complex bodies revealed by SLR macro setups in various tropical environments across the World. My favourite is a huge beautiful robber fly I captured in Cairns that buzzed like a bumblebee [Photography, 4: Flies Bees Wasps Hornets].

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But this was more than just a fly buzzing around me; it seemed to like being near humans. The next day it buzzed a workman in the flat to his annoyance and that evening buzzed my partner on the other side of the room, much to her disgust.

After a couple more days it took to landing on the top of my old XP PC, sitting a mere 12 inches from my head, or standing in the middle of the buttons on the calculator I leave on top of it. I eventually worked out it liked the PC because it was warm. Flies don't have human like body organs but they do have cell like structures with similar functions. Between them is a liquid like substance (hemolymph) and when it's cold it's less runny, so flies need to warm up before they can function normally.

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After a bit of research I discovered female flies' eyes are further apart than male flies and comparing images on the net, I concluded it was a female, which I had begun to suspect from the way it preened itself on my dressing gown whilst I wore it. I read female flies are the ones that like decomposing matter because they lay their eggs in it, and male flies like sweet things such as ice cream.

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Wary of a fly that could carry bacteria around I decided to tempt her with a less toxic diet. I left a tray by the calculator that once had a sweet strawberry tart in it, still littered with the remains of its sickly sweet strawberry compote, but she shunned it.

Flies eat by 'barfing' over a substance to reduce it to a liquid to suck up. Here's a great video:
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1974t3b/how_flies_actually_eat_your_food/?rdt=34018

I decided I might have more luck with a ready-made liquid treat. I sprinkled a small amount of drinking chocolate powder onto a drop of water on a teaspoon, slowly placed it on top of the PC in front of the calculator and enticed her towards it.

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Flies taste with their feet and after a few tentative steps it stuck its proboscis into the liquid, at first a few slurps then becoming faster and more frantic, almost like a toddler discovering sweets.

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After a long time and after she had stuffed herself silly, she retired to the top of the PC, clearly too engorged to climb up onto her favourite position on the calculator. After a few minutes I heard a short buzz as she tried to take off but hilariously she was too full to even do that. I counted a good hour
before she could fly again.

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A couple of days later when she was on my calculator I took an eye loupe I use to magnify small objects and slowly edged it to a couple of inches away from her to get a good look. She was certainly young and healthy (I get small yet bold jumping spiders in the bathroom that I thought were also being friendly until I looked more closely and found them grey and therefore old and dying when they emerge fearless. I wondered she was the same, but she was in fine fettle).

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As I held the loupe up against her to get her in focus, amazingly she moved her head to look at me, then even more amazingly walked over and stared back at me through the loupe! Half an inch away! Embarrassed (at the same time thinking, 'this is getting silly'), I slowly moved the loupe away and she stood there for a while, before wandering back to the middle of the keys.

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I took a photo of her on the top of the PC using flash with the simple point and shoot camera I had there at the time. I expected the flash to drive her off instantly, but she stayed put. Normally they fly off before the image sensor has time to register their presence, but not this fly. It didn't budge.