Fly Information
Introduction – Information About Flies
Several kinds of non-biting flies can be found in and around farms, residences, and food-handling establishments. These flies can be harmful to health, causing annoyance and discomfort. All non-biting flies have an egg, larva (maggot), pupa, and adult stage in their life cycle. The adult fly has 2 wings (the hind pair is reduced to a knobbed balancing organ).
Non-biting flies are usually scavengers in nature and many are capable of transmitting diseases to man. non-biting flies can usually be grouped according to their habits and appearance as: houseflies and their relatives; flesh flies, blow flies and bottle flies, filter flies, and vinegar (fruit) flies
House Fly
Image from http://www.terrain.net.nz/ Photo by Phil Bendle.
The house fly, Musca domestica, is one of the most common of all insects. It is world-wide in distribution and is a pest in homes, barns, poultry houses, food processing plants, dairies, and recreation areas. It has a tremendous breeding potential and during the warmer months can produce a generation in less than two weeks.
Not only are they a nuisance, but they also can transport disease-causing organisms. More than 100 pathogens associated with the house fly may cause disease in humans and animals, including typhoid, cholera, bacillary dysentery, tuberculosis, anthrax ophthalmia and infantile diarrhoea, as well as parasitic worms. Pathogenic organisms are picked up by flies from rubbish, sewage and other sources of filth, and then transferred on their mouthparts and other body parts, through their vomits, faeces and contaminated external body parts to human and animal food.
Description
About 1/4″ in length; dull gray in color; thorax marked longitudinally with 4 dark stripes; abdomen pale and fourth wing vein is angled
Breeding Habits
Warm organic material such as animal and poultry manure, garbage, decaying vegetables and fruits and in piles of moist leaves and lawn clippings. Is also known to be attracted to carrion.
Life Cycle
6 to 10 days
Blow Fly
The blowflies and bottle flies usually have a metallic blue or green colour or both on the thorax and abdomen. These flies are strong fliers and range many kilometres from breeding places. They are abundant during the warm summer months.
Blowflies and bottle flies can breed on dead rodents and birds in attics or wall voids of houses. They usually breed in meat scraps, animal excrement, and decaying animal matter. The adult flies are quite active inside and are strongly attracted to light. The mature larvae are often a problem when they migrate from breeding areas to pupate.
Blowflies usually lay eggs on dead animals or decaying meat. Rubbish bins have been known to produce 30,000 blowflies in one week. The life cycle usually lasts 9-21 days from egg to adult.
Description
About 1/2″ in length with, generally, a shiny/metallic abdomen and/or thorax
Breeding Habits
Dead animal carcasses; decomposing meat and fish, garbage, over-ripe fruit, decaying vegetable matter and sores on living humans.
Life Cycle
9 to 21 days
Fruit Fly
Fruit flies are nuisance pests and contaminators of food. Fruit flies usually breed in fruit, dirty rubbish containers, or slime in drains, feeding on yeasts that grow on organic matter.
Each adult lays about 500 eggs which hatch and the larvae mature to adults in 9-12 days. These flies are readily attracted to fruit, vegetables, and soft drink bottles and cans.
Description
About 1/8″ in length, brownish-black to brownish-yellow in color and have a feathery bristle on the antennae
Breeding Habits
Fermenting or rotting fruit and vegetable material and in rubbish cans
Life Cycle
9 to 21 days
Stable Fly
The stable fly or dog fly is a bloodsucking fly which is of considerable importance to people, pets and agricultural animals. Stable Flies primarily attack animals for a blood meal, but in the absence of an animal host will also bite man. Adult stable flies can fly up to 70 miles from their breeding sites. The stable fly adult is similar to the house fly in size and colour. The stable fly, however, has a long bayonet-like mouthpart for sucking blood. Unlike many other species of flies, both male and female stable flies suck blood.
The stable fly can breed all year in warmer environments although peak populations occur in the summer months. Stable fly bites are extremely painful to both man and animal. When hungry, stable flies are quite persistent and will continue to pursue a blood meal even after being swatted at several times. Although the bite is painful, there is little irritation after the bite, and few people exhibit an allergic reaction to stable fly bites.
The most practical and economical method for reducing stable fly populations is the elimination or proper management of breeding sources. It is important to remember that stable flies cannot develop in dry materials.
Description
Similar to the house fly in size and colour however, has a long bayonet-like mouthpart
Breeding Habits
Soggy hay, grasses or feed, piles of moist fermenting weed or grass cuttings, spilled green chop, peanut litter, seaweed deposits along beaches, and sometimes in manure well-mixed with hay
Life Cycle
22-58 days