Do moths pee on everything they land on??

Question

Also.....do flies regergitate their food on everything they land on?? (***Childhood rumors***)

Answer 1

I have heard of the mith about moths doing that, but I researched it on the Internet and no they do not pee every time they land. That would be pretty gross though if they did! lol And yes, flies do regurgitate there food every time they land on something. I also researched this one on the Internet. That's disgusting...! lol Well I hope I answered your question.

Answer 2

Im pretty sure that moths and flies as do ladybugs believe it or not, leave a scent on objects they have landed on. Its a chemical. Flies don't regergitate on everything they land on because alot of times especially in human presence they have no time. They aren't regergitating anyhow they are leaving their chemical scent.

Answer 3

No.

I doubt if most moths produce any liquid urine at all -- and moths are fairly clean creatures, not spreading human diseases.

I suspect where the moth-myth comes from may actually be actually mice -- housemice do trail urine everywhere they go (other species may not). Moths, mice, myths -- all much the same...

Many insects and other invertebrates do lay scent trails -- but this is not urine. Moths produce scent too, but in other ways, wafting it in the air -- some male moths can track females from miles away, and this is why some kinds have such feathery feelers.

House-flies and similar species have "taste" sensors in their feet. If these detect food chemicals (which might include those in our sweat), their mouthparts automatically extend to whatever they are standing on, and they feed. Their mouthparts are a sucker tube thing, and when feeding, they secrete digestive juices onto the food, then suck this up. This is what's often called regurgitation, though I'm not sure if that's strictly correct. Either way, food sucked by a fly may be contaminated by whatever bit of muck they last fed on, so is not to be encouraged...

T
It's true that there are flies which can lay eggs in skin. However, these are not at all the same as the common houseflies or bluebottles you normally see. Remember that there are many thousands of kinds of flies, and every one has its own lifestyle. Most common kinds breed in waste food, dead animals or similar places.

The nasty ones you were told about are called screw-worm flies, and yes, their maggots can eat living flesh. They can be a serious pest of cattle and other farm stock -- but they only occur in certain places, mainly in the tropics. Unless you happen to live in one of those places you ought to be safe from passing flies. They need a small wound to get the egg in. There are also bot-flies, which lay one egg at a time, and have round maggots living just under the skin -- a friend of mine had one of these on her shoulder after returning from a holiday in Central America.

Ordinary bluebottle maggots cannot eat living flesh, and this is sometimes used medically. It was discovered, I believe in the trenches in the First World War, that soldiers wounded in the morning healed better than those wounded in the evening. It turned out that this was because if hit in the morning you had to wait all day in no-mans-land until rescued in the evening, but if injured later you would not have to wait so long.

If you waited, flies had time to lay eggs on your wounds -- but it was found that the maggots actually helped clean the wound, by eating the dead flesh and leaving the living. Wounds without maggots would have to be cleaned by cutting out both dead and living flesh, and so would not heal so well. Once this was discovered, maggots were bred in hygienic conditions and used to clean such wounds before surgery. Ugh!

Maggots are still used sometimes for difficult and poorly-healing wounds, such as the ulcers which diabetics often get on their feet -- this may even save people from amputation. I heard one such chap on the radio once, and he talked of the little maggots under his bandages as if they were pets!

Answer 4

lol i heard that too but they actually just taste food with their feet...that's where their taste buds are

at my school they said when flies land on you they lay eggs and a week later flies will come out of your skin!! scared us to death

Answer 5

Only when they are being polite. When they are impolite they crap all over everything they land on.

Just kidding. I don't think their residue is particularly nice, though. I'd wash up if they landed on me.