Donk flies

One morning in July I was sitting on my mom’s patio. It was about an hour after dawn. The brick was still sodden from the previous night’s rain, and little green weeds were pushing up through the cracks.

My gaze fell upon a dog turd in the mulch. It was so fully covered in flies I could not, at first, comprehend what it was. It looked like a jewel. I mean, a weird and gross jewel, but still jewel-like somehow in the shifting color and sparkle of flies. And it got me thinking: what color even is that?

Naturally, I did some research. Here are some random thoughts.

• The shiny green ones, the ones I’m talking about, are called bottle flies, apparently due to their color. I don’t quite agree. For one thing, bottles can be many colors, but let’s just say we’re talking about green bottles here. Green bottles are green. Bottle flies are green but also many other colors depending on where you’re standing - more like the color of an oil slick or the paint job of a badass donk. I motion to call them donk flies. Motion seconded. All in favor. Motion passes unanimously.

• The mechanism that creates the rainbow on an oil slick has to do with layering: since oil is lighter than water and the twain mingle not, oil spreads on the surface of water into a film just a few thousandths of a millimeter thick. Some light reflects off the surface of the oil; some passes through and reflects off the surface of the water. The rainbow is the pattern of wave interference between the two reflections, which splits white light into its component colors.

• In Tibetan Buddhism, the Four Kayas represent the components of fundamental emptiness. I’m going to do a poor job explaining but it’s basically 1. constant manifestation, 2. vividness of experience, 3. underlying emptiness, and 4. the first three are really the same thing. The second kaya, Sambhogakaya or “enjoyment body",” is often likened to a rainbow on a bubble: our experience of the world is real only in the sense that it’s there, lovely, entirely dependent on conditions, and quickly gone.

• A rainbow on a bubble works the same way as an oil slick. It’s that lipid and water thing.

• This phenomenon, with or without oil & water, is called iridescence: the distortion of light as it moves through reflective layers of variable thickness. Many bugs possess this quality.

• The donk fly produces iridescence through layers of a polysaccharide called chitin, which it secretes from its epidermis. The processes of hardening and layering is called “sclerotization,” which to my ear sounds appropriately gross.

• Chitin is also found in the cell walls of fungi. It is not synthesized by mammals, so it induces an immune response, for which purpose it is deployed in some medications. It’s also used as an enzyme immobilizer in processed foods. Also appropriately gross!

Friends, I don’t know what any of this means. Bugs are weird.

I tell my kids to respect all forms of life, even pesky ones like insects. (Two of my three kids are on board with this assessment, one to the point that he experiences actual distress if a bug is accidentally killed. My youngest does not buy it. She’s more like, “that bug should have got out of the way.” She does like potato bugs, though. Totally unrelated topic: what do you call those things? I have also heard them called rolly-pollies and a couple of other things. Apparently this is a regional thing. This parenthetical is getting really long, but I’m not convinced it’s totally off-topic.)

Maybe these random facts will cause you to appreciate the ethereal beauty of the green-adjacent donk fly. Maybe you will be like, flies are gross. This post is gross. Why can’t you agonize about your process more. I don’t know. Can we call this a thought-starter? I’m not even sure why someone would write these things.

I’m just going with it, friends! Let me know your thoughts!