Doesn't last long in this house.
How fast do you have to be to catch a fly? Pretty fast, no? Well, leave it to Darwin to catch any fly (or insect, for that matter) who makes the biggest mistake of its life by entering this house.
Darwin isn't big on eating spiders (I would imagine that they taste rather yucky). But his favorite delicacy is fly. And he relishes the experience even more if he has caught them after dogged (no pun intended) pursuit.
I've seen Darwin catch a fly between his paws (sometimes I swear he would love opposable thumbs) and then munch on it quickly, as if knowing that if he's late by less than a second the flighty creature will be off again.
But he doesn't really mind when they get free from him because he's completely confident that he will prevail, in the end. All he has to do is pursue and wait.
Darwin does honor to his famous tocayo not only by his own success at survival (he was found abandoned as a kitten under a wood pile because of his corpse-rising yowls) but also because he does a pretty good job at helping with natural selection in the insect world. He's quite good at picking off the insects that aren't going to make it to procreate.
I have to say that despite my generally Buddhist attitude toward almost all creatures, great and small, I don't save the flies from Darwin (though I will save them from drowning at my in-laws' pool). I figure it's part of the circle of life, or whatever it's called, if Darwin eats them. Drowning, however, seems a rather undignified death for a fly.
Now if only I could get Darwin to stop chewing on my plants, which he perceives to be his own personal salad bar, that would be an improvement around here.
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