Blue bottle fly

The bluebottle fly or bottlebee (Calliphora vomitoria) is a common blow fly found in most areas of the world and is the type species for the genus Calliphora. Similar species include the greenbottle fly, a close relative that can be distinguished by its bright green metallic colouring. Bluebottle fly adults feed on nectar, while the larvae feed on carcasses of dead animals. Adults are also pollinators to some flowers with strong odor.

Description

It is 10–14 millimetres (0.4–0.6 in) long, slightly larger than a housefly. The head and thorax are dull gray and the abdomen is bright metallic blue with black markings. Its body and legs are covered with black bristle-like hair. It has short, clubbed antennae and 4 tarsi per leg. The eyes are red and the wings are transparent. The legs and antennae are black and pink. The chest is bright purple and has spikes to protect themselves against other flies. These insects like to fly in packs in order to detect possible prey more efficiently. If one fly detects food, it will disperse a pheromone which will alert the others to the meal.

Bluebottle

Bluebottle can mean:

Organisms

Other

Blue bottle experiment

The blue bottle experiment is a chemical reaction. An aqueous solution containing glucose, sodium hydroxide, methylene blue and some air is shaken in a closed bottle; it turns from colorless to blue and then decolorizes again after a while. With further shaking, the cycle can be repeated several times. This experiment is a classic chemistry demonstration and can be used in laboratory courses as a general chemistry experiment. The reaction will work with other reducing sugars besides glucose and also with other reducing dyes.

The aqueous solution in the classical reaction contains glucose, sodium hydroxide and methylene blue. In the first step the enolate of glucose is formed. The next step is a redox reaction of the enolate with methylene blue. The glucose is oxidized to gluconic acid which, in alkaline solution is in the sodium gluconate form. Methylene blue is reduced to colorless leucomethylene blue.

If there is enough available oxygen, leucomethylene blue is then re-oxidized to methylene blue and the blue color of the solution is restored. The availability of oxygen is increased by shaking the solution. When the solution comes to rest, glucose reduction of the redox dye again takes the upper hand and the color of the solution disappears. The reaction is first order in glucose, methylene blue and hydroxide ion and zero-order in oxygen.