Fly spray is a chemical insecticide that comes in an aerosol can that is sprayed into the air to kill flies. Fly sprays will kill various flying insects such as house flies and wasps.
Fly sprays often contain the powerful insect toxin dichlorvos which is often targeted by environmental groups as a carcinogenic compound.
Fly sprays kill insects by interrupting the nerve signals from the motor neurons in the insect. This in turn causes them to go into a permanent contraction which makes flying and respiration impossible, and the insects then die of asphyxiation.
Fly spray contains chemicals (including many organophosphate compounds) that bind to and permanently block the action of an enzyme called acetylcholinesterase. Acetyl choline (ACh) is the nerve transmitter substance released by motor neurones (at a site called the neuromuscular junction) to stimulate muscle contraction. The muscles relax (stops contracting) when the ACh is removed from the neuromuscular junction (NMJ) by the action of acetylcholinesterase. By inhibiting the cholinesterase the fly can no longer break down ACh in the NMJ and so its muscles lock up in a state of tetany (continuous contraction) making flying and respiration impossible.
Fly spray is dangerous to pets as well as fish and should be used with caution.
Famous quotes containing the words fly and/or spray:
“Sisters are always drying their hair.
Locked into rooms, alone,
They pose at the mirror, shoulders bare,
Trying this way and that their hair,
Or fly importunate down the stair
To answer the telephone.”
—Phyllis McGinley (1905–1978)
“Sovran of beauty! like the spray she grows,
Compassed she is with thorns and cankered bower.
Yet were she willing to be plucked and worn,
She would be gathered, though she grew on thorn.”
—Robert Greene (1558?–1592)