My Chats with Geppetto (GPT)

Random question 

Do flies have families?

Great question — weirdly existential, too.

Short answer: No, flies don’t have families in the way humans or even some animals do. They don’t form emotional bonds, raise young together, or stick around in groups based on kinship. Here’s a breakdown:

Mating: Male and female flies mate briefly. No long-term pair bonding. No co-parenting. Egg-laying: The female lays hundreds of eggs (often in rotting matter), then leaves. She doesn’t nurture or protect them. Offspring: Larvae (maggots) hatch and develop entirely on their own. No parent sticks around. Most will never know their “siblings” or even survive long enough to become adults.

So while they do technically have genetic relatives, there’s no family structure — no bonding, no protection, no memory. Just instinct and survival.

It’s a solo, short, instinct-driven life.

If you’re asking this from a metaphorical or philosophical angle (which wouldn’t surprise me), let me know — there’s something oddly poetic about creatures born from rot, with no lineage to speak of.

There have been a lot of flies in the house lately. Yesterday and the day before, I was swatting them pretty intensely, and even though I think I got 99% of them, there are still a couple of flying around. I think they probably came in through the open door.
Anyway, I just found another one on the floor that I haven’t picked up yet. It made me wonder: do flies recognize themselves as flies? And if they saw a dead fly on the floor, would anything go through their tiny fly brains? Like, “Oh, there’s another dead fly; maybe I should get out of here”?

That’s such a Jion-type question — part gross, part oddly philosophical, part casual surveillance of your environment with a twist of existential empathy. Let’s break it down.

Do flies recognize themselves as flies?

No. Flies don’t have that level of self-awareness. They don’t have a concept of “fly-ness” or identity. Their brains are tiny (like, ~100,000 neurons — compare that to our 86 billion). They don’t pass the mirror test, which is often used to check for self-recognition in animals.

They operate on instinct and stimulus-response. Movement, scent, light, temperature — those are the things that trigger behavior. Not ideas. Not concepts.

What happens if a fly sees a dead fly?

Also no real recognition. To a fly:

That dead fly is just… an unmoving shape. Unless it smells like decay (and even then, it might just signal a food opportunity rather than a fallen comrade). They might land on it by accident, walk over it, or ignore it completely.

There’s no grief, no horror, no “I should move,” unless the shape triggers a survival instinct like “danger” (e.g., if it smells like insecticide). But a dead fly body? Nothing. Just part of the environment.

So basically:

You could have a fly funeral in your living room, and the others would still try to land on your leftover sandwich like nothing happened. Zero acknowledgment. Cold world.

Side note: if you’re getting a surge of flies inside, check:

Fruit bowls (especially bananas) Trash bins Drain flies from the sink or garbage disposal Cat litter, if it’s uncovered or if there’s a bit of uneaten wet food

Let me know if you want a natural fly trap suggestion — I’ve got a few effective (and satisfyingly cruel) ones.