Greenbottles - how do they know?

[jeremiah]

Walked out of my front door this afternoon into a swarm of greenbottles.

I thought something must have died in the front garden, but the excitement was just over a small dollop of fox poo. (Stinky foxes! )

Question is, how did they all know about it?

Would they have just hatched somewhere close by and followed the smell, or do they do the vulture thing and watch each other in case one of them finds something interesting?

[Dogghound]

They have an extremely well developed sense of smell. This is done using the 3rd segment of their antenna. They have bben recorded travelling 6.4km from a carcass, so potentially could move from quite some distance.

[jeremiah]

Thank you!

I'm amazed they can go that far in a straight line, the ones that get into the house seem to just zigzag about in short stretches.