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Wasps (and to a lesser extent flies) also remember how they came into a room, and can get back out quickly: imitate a bat with a hand (flickering fingers back a
by Nomentatus 8y ago
Wasps (and to a lesser extent flies) also remember how they came into a room, and can get back out quickly: imitate a bat with a hand (flickering fingers back and forth) and they usually zoom right back outside the way they came in. In evolutionary terms, they've entered a cave, and caves have bats: so they have an exit strategy ready to hand.
- FatDrunknStupid 8y agoA clap will often get them to go as well. Probably similar mechanics. Actually had a pet wasp who liked that though.
- Aardwolf 8y agoExcept if the room has a tilted open window. It comes in through the window, but never discovers how to escape anymore from it since it keeps trying to fly towards the outside light through the glass rather than going up a bit and flying through the actual open gap. At least that's my experience, and of course that's quite annoying behavior when you'd rather have it go outside the house! But maybe I should try this "bat signal" next time :)
- keithnz 8y agocareful, the bat signal should only be used when Gotham is in danger!
- rossdavidh 8y agoYou know, if Batman were keeping tsetse flies and mosquitoes at bay, he would save a lot more lives, really.
- Nomentatus 8y agoAnother instance of Wittgenstein's bottle, or a typical aboriginal fish trap.
- hombre_fatal 8y agoSeems like you’re giving yourself an awful lot of credit for moving your hands, something that most insects avoid regardless of what you are trying to charade. Though shooing mosquitos by making dove hands based on a pet theory you had while watching BBC’s bat special is how I imagine most of you. Along with the cave-like room.
- emiliobumachar 8y ago> imitate a bat with a hand (flickering fingers back and forth) Could anyone describe this in more detail, or link a video? My web- searching has failed ne.
- tsukikage 8y agoI, too, wish to know how to make wasps leave the premises with some hand motions
- mcv 8y agoYou make it sound like a magic Repel Insects spell.
- emiliobumachar 8y agoSufficiently advanced technology.
- Nomentatus 8y agoThis comment applies so profoundly to the original article, doesn't it - the body painting was too advanced for European understanding, so it was taken to be magic in the useless, mere superstition sense of that term. Not quite what Mr. A. C. Clarke meant to point to, but it fills out the meaning behind his point and buttresses it, in my mind.
- Nomentatus 8y agoWiggle your fingers up and down, as independently (of each other's motion) as possible.