• Question: How can house flies fly at full speed at a window and not be seriously hurt. If a human were to run into a wall, they would be hurt and collapse. How can house flies perform the equivalent and avoid serious injury?

    Asked by christiancox to Fiona, Joanna, William on 25 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: William Davies

      William Davies answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      most flies i’ve seen have been squished on windscreens! basically, this is to do with momentum (mass x velocity). humans have a much greater mass than flies, so they hit the window/wall with much greater momentum – as the window/wall is immovable, the law of conservation of momentum means that the human must rebound and injure itself

    • Photo: Fiona Randall

      Fiona Randall answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      Haha, that is a good question. I don’t know why that is. But insects don’t have pain receptors like we do so maybe it is that it just doesn’t hurt, or that they don’t need pain receptors as their bodies are capable of survival from high impact. We have pain receptors so our bodies stay safe and we avoid things that will harm us.

    • Photo: Joanna Brooks

      Joanna Brooks answered on 25 Jun 2010:

      Hello! Well, the housefly has amazing areodynamic skills which enables it to tilt its body in many different angles at very short notice – although it may seem like they hit a wall or window ‘head on’ they actually tilt their body in a protective way at the last minute. Also, the housefly has hardly any body mass so when they hit a wall they simply bounce off. As humans have a greater body mass when we hit a wall we absorb the energy shocks and this can cause damage like a broken bone for example.

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