What Is A Housefly?

A number of species worldwide are found similar to the housefly, such as the lesser housefly, Fannia canicularis; the stationary fly, Stomoxys calcitran; and others in the Musca family, such as M. vetustissima, Australian Bush Fly, and several closely related taxa including M. primitiva, M. shanghaiensis, M. violacea, and M. Although only one species (Musca domestica, within the Muscidae family) is correctly called housefly, several of the closely related Muscidae are almost similar in appearance, and are usually found in houses. The adult house fly (Musca domestica) is 6-7mm long, thorax is grayish-grey to deep gray, has four narrow black stripes, eyes are reddish-brown, and wings are transparent, translucent. The house fly has complete metamorphosis, with separate eggs, larval or maggot, pupal, and adult stages.

After emerging from a pupal stage, adult houseflies stop growing; the smaller fly is not necessarily the younger fly, but is instead a result of insufficient nourishment in the larval stage. Because it has spongy, or lapped, mouthparts, The housefly cannot bite; however, its close cousin, The stationary fly, does bite. The housefly is usually associated with animal manure, but has well-adapted to feeding on trash, and is therefore found in abundance nearly everywhere humans live. It is economically important, as it can spread disease-causing organisms like salmonella, E. coli, etc., and it can be an unpleasant annoyance on and around farms and homes.


The most significant harm associated with the household fly is nuisance and the indirect harm caused by potential transmission of over 100 pathogens associated with the fly. Among pathogens that are typically transmitted by the house fly are Salmonella, Shigella, Campylobacter, Escherichia, Enterococcus, Chlamydia, and several other disease-causing species. House flies are highly suspected to spread at least 65 diseases in humans, including typhoid fever, dysentery, cholera, poliomyelitis, yaws, anthrax, tularemia, leprosy, and tuberculosis. Diseases spread More than 100 pathogens associated with the house fly can cause diseases in humans and animals, including typhoid, cholera, Bacillary dysentery, tuberculosis, anthrax ophthalmia, and infantile diarrhea, and parasitic worms.

Although the house fly does not bite, controlling the domesticated musca is essential for human health and comfort in many areas of the world. When The house fly is the primary insect pest of commercial egg-producing facilities, control of the insect is accomplished through application of an adulticide or a larvalicide, either to suppress adult numbers directly or indirectly. The most common controls used on house flies are sanitation, the use of traps, and insecticides, but there are cases where integrated control measures for flies have been implemented. More often, insecticides (particularly insect growth regulators) may be fed to livestock, with residual insecticides in the manure suppressing flies breeding.

Residual insecticidal sprays are effective for a few weeks in fighting flies; however, some domestic fly species have developed resistance to certain insecticides, such as DDT. Unfortunately, since insecticides are broken down by sunlight, residual effects from this material are significantly reduced, and it is likely that it cannot kill the fly much longer than several days to a week. Contact (non-residual) pesticides that are labelled for flies may be applied as space treatments (fog) to eliminate adult flies.

If there are many flies indoors, a space spray (aerosol) labeled for flying insects may be used. If you wish to use suppression, you can order fly larvae from bug shops in Texas or around the U.S. The pupae, already infected with a pest, can be distributed throughout your house or around areas where the fly is developing.

Negative houseflies can lay eggs in peoples excrement, where the maggots can filter down to feed on the wastes nutrients. Houseflies may fly for many kilometers from the site of reproduction, carrying with them a variety of organisms in their hair, mouth parts, vomitus, and stool. Understanding their habits and life cycles can help you remove as many flies as possible, with as little expense to yourself as possible, and the environment.

Adult flies have a mean lifespan of 15-20 days, but they can survive for as long as two months under the right conditions. After two or three days, full-grown adult houseflies are completely ready to breed, resuming their four-step life cycle. Warm summer conditions are usually optimal for the development of the house fly, and the house fly may complete its life cycle in just seven to 10 days, with up to 10 to 12 generations possible during one summer.

Often mistaken for the smaller house fly, The Drain Fly is unique to itself by its moth-like or hairy appearance. Houseflies can easily be identified by four dark, longitudinal stripes at the top of the thorax, or midbody area.

It is worth noting that the providencias are very abundant and common, but taxa from other habitats are found in comparatively lower abundances, or are absent altogether, from laboratory flies (Fig. For instance, Wallemiomycete was found in Belgiums flies in higher abundances than the abundances of Dothideomycetes in Rwandas fly samples.

In addition, laboratory-grown fly samples showed distinct bacterial community profiles from those in ambient habitats. The fungal communities of domestic flies were also weakly separated by habitat, evidently in the case of domestic fly samples from Belgium, once again, farms were separated from hospitals and homes (Fig. Comparisons of bacterial communities by alpha diversity revealed that house flies harbour highly diverse bacterial microbiota, irrespective of the country or habitat, with external bacterial communities being even more diverse than internal populations (overall Shannon median diversity 6.2 [range 0.5-8.2] vs. 4.3 [range 0.004-6.9], respectively)

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