Fly-killing device

A fly-killing device is used for pest control of flying insects, such as houseflies, wasps, moths, gnats, and mosquitoes.

Flyswatter

A flyswatter (or fly-swat, fly swatter) usually consists of a small rectangular or round sheet of some across of lightweight, flexible, vented material (usually thin metallic, rubber, or plastic mesh), attached to a lightweight wire or plastic handle, wood, or metal handle about long. The venting or perforations minimize the disruption of air currents, which can be detected by the fly and allow it to escape, and also reduce air resistance, making it easier to hit a fast-moving target such as a fly.

A flyswatter is ideally lightweight and stiff, allowing quick acceleration to overcome the fast reaction time of the fly (six to ten times faster than a human), while also minimizing damage caused by hitting other objects. The flyswatter usually works by mechanically crushing the fly against a hard surface, after the user has waited for the fly to land somewhere. However, some skilled users can injure or stun an airborne insect in mid-flight by whipping the swatter through the air at an extreme speed.

History

The abeyance of insects by use of short horsetail staffs and fans is an ancient practice, dating back to the Egyptian pharaohs orrection Needed The earliest flyswatters were in fact nothing more than some sort of striking surface attached to the end of a long stick. An early patent on a commercial flyswatter was issued in 1900 to Robert R. Montgomery who called it a fly-killer.
Montgomery sold his patent to John L. Bennett, a wealthy inventor and industrialist who made further improvements on the design.

However, the origin of the name "flyswatter" does not come from its inventors. In the summer of 1905, Kansas was plagued by an overabundance of flies, which as well as causing annoyance, aided in the spread of communicable disease. Dr. Samuel Crumbine, a member of the Kansas board of health, wanted to raise public awareness of the threat of flies. He was inspired by a chant at a local Topeka softball game: "swat the ball". In a health bulletin published soon afterwards, he exhorted Kansans to "swat the fly". In response, a schoolteacher named Frank H. Rose created the "fly bat", a device consisting of a yardstick attached to a piece of screen. Crumbine had named the device now commonly known as the flyswatter.

Fly gun

The fly gun (or flygun), a derivative of the flyswatter, uses a spring-loaded plastic projectile to mechanically "swat" flies. Mounted on the projectile is a perforated circular disk, which, according to advertising copy, "won't splat the fly". Several similar products are sold, mostly as toys or novelty items, although some maintain their use as traditional fly swatters.

Another gun-like design consists of a pair of mesh sheets spring loaded to "clap" together when a trigger is pulled, squashing the fly between them. In contrast to the traditional flyswatter, such a design can only be used on an insect in mid-air.

Another projectile fly killer is the Bug-a-Salt, a miniaturized shotgun that shoots a spray of dry table salt using a spring-compressed air blast similar to a BB rifle. It has an accurate range of about , and the killed bugs remain whole for easy cleanup. The pneumatic salt-shot approach is claimed to be effective, because the high speed, small-sized salt grains are apparently undetected by the targeted fly until it is too late to dodge them.

Fly bottle

A fly bottle or glass flytrap is a passive trap for flying insects. In the Far East, it is a large bottle of clear glass with a black metal top with a hole in the middle. An odorous bait is placed in the bottom of the bottle in the form of pieces of meat. Flies enter the bottle in search of food and are then unable to escape because their phototaxis behavior leads them anywhere in the bottle except to the darker top where the entry hole is.

A European fly bottle is more conical, with small feet that raise it to , with a trough about a wide and deep that runs inside the bottle all around the central opening at the bottom of the container. In use, the bottle is stood on a plate and some sugar is sprinkled on said plate to attract flies, whom eventually fly up into the bottle, whose trough is filled with beer or vinegar, into which the flies fall and drown. In the past, the trough was sometimes filled with a dangerous mixture of milk, water, and arsenic or mercury chloride