How sad is this ?

[Answerprancer]

I just rescued a tiny drosophila fly from my sparkling orange juice. I fished it out with a pen, placed it on a sheet of paper and even gave it a 'rinse' with a drop of plain water. It was touch and go until I placed it under my angle poise lamp to dry off, I watched it make a wet stripe up the paper as it staggered along. It is now dry and walking around aimlessly. I wonder if its wings are stuck to its body.
Should I give it another rinse ? ...decisions decisions.

[Buenchico]

It will dry out eventually, AP. Just leave it alone.

It reminds me of the times that I've sat here at my computer, trying to read the screen while one spider spent the evening going up and down the single strand that suspended it directly in front of my monitor, while another kept running over my keyboard (and my hands) as I typed. They're nice but annoying!

[starone]

No, just squash it and put it out of its misery - and throw your orange juice away and start again.

[mrs.chappie]

You big softee.

I did a similar good deed today. A wood-louse was on my kitchen floor, on its back, frantically waving its legs about, trying to right itself. I scooped it onto a piece of paper and put it out in the garden.

Do you think we'll both go to heaven together? :o)

[BertiWooster]

So , how long was it before you swatted it , Chris ?

[Answerprancer]

Och Starbuck ma wee pet ! ...hov ye nae compassion ?

[birdie1971]

Very sad indeed. Actually, it's quite pathetic and a behaviour that I display regularly: 'helping' spiders out of the bath, capturing rogue flies in the house and freeing them into the wild. I'm averse to knowingly killing anything.

Last year I rescued a tiny lizard out of our Villa's swimming pool (I say 'our Villa' but we were only renting it) and watching it puff and pant its way back into life and scuttle off into a nearby bush gave me lovely warm feeling inside.

Pathetic!

[starone]

I hate woodlice too AP and I will cheerfully lend my shoe - with my foot in it - to squash Mrs. C's woodlouse. Spiders are all right - they kill flies.

[mrs.chappie]

I was round at my nephew's new house, he has an uncovered water butt in the garden. There were several ladybirds on the water, some of them still alive, their little legs wiggling like crazy. I fished all the live ones out and put them on leaves in a nearby hedge.

I hate to see anything struggling to survive.

[starone]

Ladybirds are all right - they eat the greenflies on my roses. It really depends on what they are and what they do. For instance I would kill slugs and snails to stop them eating my young plants. I read once that anything that moves quickly is a predator and so you should let beetles and things like that go free as they will kill and eat the slow moving things.

[Buenchico]

There's a house fly doing a circuit of my monitor as I type. I'll probably spent half the night trying to help it find it's way outside!

[starone]

Another example of nature red in tooth and claw.

[tamborine]

grap a shoe & swipe all the spiders....they're hungry

[mrs.chappie]

My OH once went round our garden looking for snails to feed to our hedgehogs because we'd run out of mealworms. I might add that in addition to our usual hedgehogs, we had two recuperating hogs from the hedgehog hospital.....one had no nose (it'd been strimmed off in a gardening accident) and the other had an eye missing (don't know how that happened).

[bravejordy]

As much as I'm terrified of spiders I cannot bring myself to kill them. If I see one in the bath and he can't get out because of the smooth slippery surface, I drape a length of toilet paper over the side so that he's got something to grip on to. Then I quickly vacate the room!

[seekeerz]

I hate to ask, but what was it doing there in the first place, AP ... did it fall in or did it arrive with the sp orange juice ?? they're not attractive to look at [blown up on google, that is]

[johnny.5]

i saw a little beetle
wriggling on it's belly
so I lifted up my size nine foot
then squashed it with my welly

[chris1957au]

It's very sad, not for the fly but for you Answerprancer, please set foot into the world and GET A LIFE before it's your turn in the Orange Juice lol