*

Presentation

* Everyone is familiar with house flies.

Common household pests, they visit dumps, sewers and garbage heaps, feeding on fecal matter, discharges from wounds and sores, sputum, and all sorts of moist decaying matter such as spoiled fish, eggs and meat. Flies regurgitate and excrete wherever they come to rest. House flies are suspected of transmitting at least 65 diseases to humans.

*
House flies are gray, approximately 6 mm (1/4 inch) long, with four dark longitudinal stripes on top of the thorax, or middle body region. The mouth parts of the house fly are adapted for sponging up liquids. They cannot bite. Flies ingest only liquid food; they feed on solid food by regurgitating saliva onto it. The saliva liquefies the solid material, which is then sponged up with the proboscis. They require water since they continually salivate. Fly specks seen on surfaces visited by house flies are the excreted wastes.

Wing Head Compound eye

Mouth

Abdominal Segment Front legs

Thorax

Middle Leg

Hind Leg

*
* The female fly typically only mates once
during her life, thus she considered monogamous. The sperm received from the male fly during their only copulation moves into a storage area located in the female fly's reproductive system called the spermatheca. This sperm storage area is accessed repeatedly by several batches of eggs that the female lays throughout her lifetime as the eggs pass down the oviduct. The male fly has genitalia located on its posterior, which are withdrawn when not mating. The female also has posterior sex organs, her segmented ovipositor can be retracted or extended to allow her to lay eggs. The female attracts a male by producing muscalure, a volatile sex pheromone. The complex lobes of the male fly's genitalia clasp onto the female's ovipositor during copulation and the sperm are injected into the female reproductive system. While the male may grasp the female fly in the air, actual copulation takes place on a solid surface.

Eggs

Larvae Pupa Adult

Adult
Once the adult house fly hatches from the pupal stage, it has an approximate life span of 15 to 30 days. Females are able to start producing eggs after two days of life and will continue to lay eggs for about a month. Female house flies are usually larger than the males.

After about four to 10 days, a maggot will move to higher, drier ground to move into the pupa stage of its life. This process take about three to six days and is where the maggot encases itself in a reddish-brown skin where the final stages of development take place.

Eggs
Eggs are deposited by the mated female 48 days after copulation The female selects a suitable oviposition site and deposits her eggs in one to several masses. Depending on the size of a female house fly, she can lay up to 500 eggs. Eggs are white in color and are usually less than half and inch in size.

Pupa

Larvae are commonly referred to as maggots. Maggots emerge from the eggs within eight to 20 hours of being laid. Larvae begin eating whatever they can find in the area they were laid. They prefer warm, moist environments to grow in.

Larvae

House Fly Did you know?

House flies can travel up to six miles in 24 hours, but they usually prefer to stay close by their breeding ground. The easiest way to keep flies out of your home is to keep things clean. Don't leave food lying around, make sure you take out the garbage on a regular basis and wipe up messes right away. Fly infestations are often found on farms because it is hard to keep them from breeding in the readily available manure.

House flies like to perch on things like wire or string