What can flies tell you about where you’re eating?

Going for coffee in Ohare International?

Looks like Starbuck’s in Ohare international airport got closed down for a fly infestation.

The article says that they didn’t maintain their distance far enough from the door…probably true. Dumpsters are notorious for breeding houseflies and I know more than a few restaurants who keep their dumpsters close to the back door out of sheer employee laziness.

Flies lay their eggs on whatever their larvae can eat (pretty much anything decomposing) and then breed to insane numbers. Flies are thought to spread foodborne illnesses by something called phoresy-bacteria simply hitch-hike on the flies and adhere to any surface the flies walk across. It’s a health hazard.

It’s also an annoyance, and these types of things frequently bring lawsuits. A few times a year, local farmyards have to be inspected to make sure they’re doing what they can to bring the fly numbers down. There’s even been a few cases around here where one farmer blamed another farmer for his fly infestation…only to be bitch-slapped by a local entomologist who told them there was no difference between Musca domestica breeding in hog or chicken filth.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

This brings up another point…there are different types of flies which can, believe it or not, tell you different things about the establishment you’re eating at. Your common housefly is attracted to the smell of food, so you’ll see them inside restaurants in on a fairly regular basis. Even though they’re small flies, they’re still big enough to be noticed. However, you’ll occasionally see little gnats inside restaurants that are small enough to fit inside any one of the lower case o’s on this page.

Image Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

Those are most likely Drosophila, probably similar to the D. melanogaster shown above. These guys tend to breed in fruit. Their life cycles can take about a week in warm weather from egg to adult. You tend to see these in restaurants which serve iced tea.

Coincidence? Not really. I generally see these flies in the lemons that eating establishments leave out for their tea, and this tells me that the lemons in that container probably haven’t been changed in awhile…probably just tossed in the fridge at closing time. They breed in the lemons (or other fruit/veggies) and then multiply to large numbers. Under the most favorable conditions, this takes about a week or so. They’re not as dirty as fruit flies, but their presence should tell you that the employees of that establishment don’t practice good sanitary practices with their food.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

Some flies are able to breed in otherwise clean looking places. The fly above is known as a moth fly, and is generally found in bathrooms. They breed in dirty sinks, drains and toilets feeding on the gunk that’s built up just below the drains. They also breed in urinal cakes. If you see these, this probably mean it’s been awhile since anything’s been really cleaned in-depth.

You can tell a lot about the insects you see in some places. Some are just random visitors, while others actually breed in the establishment.