Flies - what's the use?
 

I was just thinking about this Mark Twain piece I read in high school about flies. It was meant to question the existence of God, but it got me thinking about ecosystems. In the piece, he wrote about all the bad things that flies do - eating at festering wounds and stealing our food - and said that there was no good use for a fly (and then came the question of why God would create something that is all bad and no good). So that's my question - what is a fly good for (in an ecosystems sense)?

I have my own theory, but I'm curious about what you all think.

EDIT: In case anybody's interested in the Mark Twain piece, it's called "Thoughts of God" and can be found 4 stories down on this atheism page [LINK].

I'm not sure, but I think they aid in the decomposition of dead organic material somehow. That would explain why they're attracted to it anyway.

Stuff eats flies. That stuff gets eaten by other stuff, and eventually becomes of use to us.

Also:

Good cannot exist without evil.

yup. They're scavengers, and help get rid of dead things.

The better example would have been the mosquito ;)

i think its the maggots that are more important to the decomposition than the adult flies themselves as they tend to just eat sugary substances, mate and then die off.

As Ogden Nash wrote:

In addition, flies can carry a host of diseases which have played strong roles in the development of social clashes throughout history. I don't if you want to consider that good, but it's a necessary function.

Well, I suppose that you could make the argument that they helped social blending and the exchange of ideas/knowledge.

But yeah, what do mosquitos (is it "oes") do besides suck blood and spread West Nile and Malaria?

It could be said that mosquitoes help to spread viri that inadvertantly add their own RNA into your chromosomes. This added RNA will find its way into the midst a gene or a gene promoter.

These types of occurances do, in a way, help organisims to evolve. We may owe our own evolution to a mosquito-like creature.

Now, it is unfortunate that they do spread diseases that kill millions of people, though their effects in the long run are thought to better a specie. You can leave that up to your own interpretation.

-SF

The flies lay eggs.

The eggs become maggots, which are eaters of decayed flesh.

Maggots are now part of a treatment for people with non-healing/slow-healing ulcerations and wounds. Maggots only eat decayed flesh, leaving healthy tissue untouched. Of course, the maggots used are not picked off a pile of garbage. they are bred in sterile conditions and carefully counted during the procedure and accounted for after the treatment.

When the dead tissue is eaten, healthy tissue has a better chance of forming. Less chance of gangrene occuring.

Pretty cool stuff, actually. Who'd'a thought.

http://www.google.com/search?q=maggo...utf-8&oe=utf-8

to think of 'uses' of flies is sort of like continuing the old anthropocentric view of nature. in another perspective, nature is mindless and without design, and the fly is just due to a series of changes or adaptations that that happened to be favourable to survival and eventually led to what we know as the fly. its goal in life is to survive long enough to propagate. nothing good or bad about it.

I didn't say "What good are flies to humans. I asked what they were "good for" (as in what do they do?) within various ecosystems. I understand where you're coming from, but that's now what I was asking. "What is it good for?" is just another (simpler) way of asking, "In what ways does the fly interact within its ecosystems?" My experience with evolutionary biology tells me that there are still a good number of scientists who use language shortcuts despite the fact that people who read it too literally come to misinterpret their words.

Tropple - thanks for that fun information!

ah sorry i misinterpreted your meaning of the word 'good'. i understand now. =)

Sure thing. I watch a lot of science programs ;-)

Both flies and mosquitoes pollinate flowers to some extent. In places where bees are less prevalent, this may become significant. BTW, there are a lot of different species of fly, some more obviously beneficial than others.

Try googling "flies pollinate" and "mosquitoes pollinate" for some interesting links.

Also, both flies and mosquitoes serve as food for other species, such as fish, birds, bats, and other insects.

Wouldn't think that Flies/Mosquitoes would do much in the way of advancing humanity other than helping to develop repellents and killing agents. Maggots help the decopmose flesh but what do flies do? and Mosquitoes help spread disease, So we have built up defenses against them. If they weren't around would we really have to worry about getting Malaria or Westnile?

Interestingly, flies may interact with humans more than we are aware. An organism called H. Pylori is commonly found to infect the stomach of individuals with treatment resistant ulcers and gastritis. The stomach irritation resolves once the H. Pylori is irradicated with a specific antibiotic regimen. The source of H. Pylori? Many researchers theorize it may be spread by infected flies landing on the food you are about to eat...

or ticks, fleas and other parasitic things
excluding leaches~

Mosquitoes feed bats, as well as their larvae feeding fish. Flies and maggots feed birds. You stumped me with ticks and fleas though, not a clue there :)

Flies are useful in a sence that they can be food for other animals like fish, also Maggots have been used (and still are used) on wounds so that they do not get infected and aid in the healing process.

New article on CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/08/02....ap/index.html

population control?

They carry diseases which kills people.

Killing people isnt a bad thing.

You're making a fundamental, and common mistake, in asking such a question.

It's like asking "Sand dunes - what's the use?"

Your question is predicated upon the assumption that the existance, development, evolution of an organism has some kind of goal or purpose in mind. This is entirely untrue. Organisms evolve to fill ecological and environmental niches.

You will find that all flies are members of the order Diptera, one of the four largest orders of life (with over 150,000 known species). The only areas on Earth where flies are not naturally occuring are the artic and antartic poles. If you are particularly interested in flies, check out http://www.inhs.uiuc.edu/cee/FLYTREE/.

Now back to the question at hand. What are flies good for? Well, on a basic level, they are "useful" for the transmission of their own genes; a fundamental attribute common to all known living organisms (and virii, if you choose not to clasify a virus as living). You specifically mention you didn't ask "what good are flies to humans?", so that's about as accurate an answer as you'll get.

What "good" are clouds?
What "good" are humans? :-)


Mr Mephisto

They keep the frogs fat and happy. What, you don't like frogs?

As Mr Mephisto noted, evolution doesn't happen for a purpose, it happens just because it can. The question "What is something good for?" is a question about a part of the integration of an organism in an ecological system.
It's gonna be hard to find an organism that isn't good for anything, if you count in what it's good for after its dead, because organisms will evolve that feed on it's body. Even virii are good for something besides replicating themselves, in that they kill people, which then can be soil for trees.

Lets construct a theoretical organism that is not good for anything.

(1) it must either not be mortal, or in the event of death destroy itself so completely on it's own that it's not viable for other organisms to either
- use the energy in their dead bodies
- capture the energy that gets free when they destroy themselves
It might seem like this is a gene that would have developed if it could have, because it prevents predators from hunting you. However, I believe, often that future generations are actually dependent on the dead bodies of their ancestors. Also I cannot imagine an easy mechanism to acomplish this.

(2) it must either
- not kill any organisms
- or destroy them as completely as described above

(3) the energy sources it feeds on,
- must not rely on being fed on,
- by the organism being fed on, no niche for other organisms may develop
- any energy used, must be used completely, no byproducts (i.e. excrements) may be a source of energy to another organism.

(4) it must still compete with other organisms to be the most efficient organism to fill the niche
For example: If it was more efficient not to shit reusable material, we wouldn't do it, but use the energy. Thus unlikely.

I believe I could go on, but I think the point is made: This is not something that would develop in an evolutionary process like there is on earth. There is no "useless" organism by that definition. Humans and virii come closest though. *sniff* ;]

They exist to bug the shiat outta me whenever I eat.
If it's not the flies, it's the cat.
If it's not the cat, it's my mom.

The related and more important question is - what good are wasps?

Bees have a couple of uses (pollination + honey) which outweighs their drawbacks (stinging people, followed by their own much deserved death).

Wasps, though they may do some small percentage of pollination could easily be replaced by a few more bees in the world. Meanwhile, wasps can sting multiple times and then fly on their merry way. Laughing at you, I might add.

And to top it off - they can, if they so choose, fly with complete silence! Subterfuge!


If wasps are not irrefutable proof of the Devil, I don't know what is.

It's said that every time a fly lands on you, it both shits & vomits on you as well.
No link, sorry.

I call this poem "Flies".

Flies.
We find them everywhere, buzzing all around.
There's buzzing when a fly is up, and when a fly is down.
They come to dinner, uninvited, landing in our soup,
Where they deposit teeny tiny microscopic poop.
You'll find dead flies on a Chevette dashboard, or Mercedes Benz.
Flies are not very nice. Flies are not our friends.

Flies start out as little maggots, in the garbage bin.
Flies eat discarded yucky things, like rotten chicken skin.
A fly'd get nasty things, if a fly got what it wished.
Like bloated stinky rotten pungent reeking rancid fish.
Flies don't care if they're on your front, or on your back end.
Flies are not very nice. Flies are not our friends.

Flies show up uninvited in every locality
To have a heapin' helpin' of your hospitality.
You'll find them sitting on the ceiling, or walking on the walls.
You'll find flies buzzing around a man's hairy sweaty... head.
Flies like dirty diapers, and grandpa's used Depends.
Flies are not very nice. Flies are not our friends.

Flies like the steamy stench of restrooms, and a horse stable.
But there's nothing that a fly likes more than Tommy and Rumble.
I'd never hurt a ladybug, it's flies I can't defend.
Flies are not very nice. Flies are not our friends.

Flies are not very nice. Flies are not our friends.
I can't stress this any more, but flies are not our friends.
Flies flies flies flies flies flies flies,
Flies flies flies flies flies .
Add Heidi, and another "s", and that spells Heidi Fliess.
But that does not change the fact that
Flies are not very nice. Flies are not our friends.

--Chuck the Intern from "Tommy and Rumble", the best morning show in Hampton Roads.


-Mikey

Nothing has to be good for anything. Any living thing is alive through a series of evolutionary steps that basically kept it ahead of the game. As long as something is well suited for its environment it will thrive, it doesn't need a "job". In fact, its job, and the job of all living things, is to reproduce. Thats all there is to life, to make more little useless things to amuze whatever higher power is watching us for entertainment...

Mosquitoes are the ones I truly see no need in having or why they exist except that the disease they pass on helps with population control.

Maggots serve a purpose as described above and are needed. Plus, flies don't live very long.

Clouds bring water to areas where water can't get to. Thus helping establish life in places away from the immediate vicinity of water.

You're kidding, right?


Mr Mephisto

What good is man?
 

In our quest to understand everything around us, we never fail to place labels such as good/bad, beautiful/evil etc., yet these terms mean nothing except to us and in our context. In the context of the intricate clock called planet earth, there is no ugliness, no beauty, no evil. There is only constantly evolving life to fill the places in nature that need such a thing. They are not here for us, to be judged by us, to be USED by us, and especially not to be understood by us. Only to exist beside us.

We are not superior to any other creature, and there existence does not require our authorization. They live, we live.

The one big difference is that there is not another organism on this planet that is destroying the planet, only humans do that. Now who's evil?