Horseflies are like getting stabbed with a large-gauge, sadistic needle because that’s kind of what’s happening. The skin of ungulates like horses is very thick, much more than ours, and their bites hurt horses. From Wikipedia (and verifiable on photos lol): “The mouthparts of females are formed into a stout stabbing organ with two pairs of sharp cutting blades, and a spongelike part used to lap up the blood that flows from the wound.” So like, if a fat tapered needle was also knife-scissors. Lots of mechanical damage. It’s also a stabbing type motion, which can do more damage than a pinching motion— pinchy bits can only hurt as much flesh as can get between them, and that’s a big beetle but the way pinchy mouthparts are shaped really doesn’t allow for them to get a good grip on a midsize mammal like us. If you were pressing their faces against your flesh, that would probably be an intensely unpleasant experience (someone in this thread mentioned getting one stuck in their clothes— that’s not an experience I’d want with one of these guys, since it would be both pressing against your skin and likely feeling defensive, and that would probably put it in the position to render us the most damage it could do to us? But short of a situation like that, or like someone pressing its face against their skin for one of those shock videos on yt, I can’t see it getting in position to get a good grip on an adult human’s flesh.) those jaws weren’t made for eating us. Horseflies, on the other hand, very much were lol.
So I think the difference is more or less what you described: one is designed to hurt mammals for a blood meal, the other (I THINK) is designed to bore holes in trees via a scrapey-chewy motion. They’ve got the force to hurt us, we are softer than trees, but the shape literally gets in the way. (Not that I’d stick my fingers in there, especially if I had small fingers? Or like the tip of your nose or a lip or something? That would probably be the way to get the nastiest injury off of one these guys, and I suspect that would probably be quite painful? But I think they’re probably intimidating enough to dissuade most folks from trying to kiss or poke them in the face lol)
I remember reading about horseflies 2 decades ago and the way it was described has haunted me ever since. “Razor-like mandibles designed to lacerate the skin.”
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u/Front_Upstairs159 3h ago edited 3h ago
Horseflies are like getting stabbed with a large-gauge, sadistic needle because that’s kind of what’s happening. The skin of ungulates like horses is very thick, much more than ours, and their bites hurt horses. From Wikipedia (and verifiable on photos lol): “The mouthparts of females are formed into a stout stabbing organ with two pairs of sharp cutting blades, and a spongelike part used to lap up the blood that flows from the wound.” So like, if a fat tapered needle was also knife-scissors. Lots of mechanical damage. It’s also a stabbing type motion, which can do more damage than a pinching motion— pinchy bits can only hurt as much flesh as can get between them, and that’s a big beetle but the way pinchy mouthparts are shaped really doesn’t allow for them to get a good grip on a midsize mammal like us. If you were pressing their faces against your flesh, that would probably be an intensely unpleasant experience (someone in this thread mentioned getting one stuck in their clothes— that’s not an experience I’d want with one of these guys, since it would be both pressing against your skin and likely feeling defensive, and that would probably put it in the position to render us the most damage it could do to us? But short of a situation like that, or like someone pressing its face against their skin for one of those shock videos on yt, I can’t see it getting in position to get a good grip on an adult human’s flesh.) those jaws weren’t made for eating us. Horseflies, on the other hand, very much were lol.
So I think the difference is more or less what you described: one is designed to hurt mammals for a blood meal, the other (I THINK) is designed to bore holes in trees via a scrapey-chewy motion. They’ve got the force to hurt us, we are softer than trees, but the shape literally gets in the way. (Not that I’d stick my fingers in there, especially if I had small fingers? Or like the tip of your nose or a lip or something? That would probably be the way to get the nastiest injury off of one these guys, and I suspect that would probably be quite painful? But I think they’re probably intimidating enough to dissuade most folks from trying to kiss or poke them in the face lol)