How do flies enter your home?

Doors or windows with no screens, garbage bins, manure pits, fermenting fruits, spilled aerated beverages, and open alcohol containers attract flies. Adult flies lay eggs on moist surfaces, cracks, washbasin corners, and sink pipes.

Let’s dive into more facts and trivia about filth flies!

What are the different types of filth flies?

There are mainly two types of filth flies based on their appearance and food preferences, small and large filth flies.

House flies, blowflies, and flesh flies are larger, soft-bodied insects with large eyes and strong fliers that occur on manure, carrion, and garbage.

Drain flies, fruit flies, and phorid flies are smaller and occur in drain sludge, organic debris, and rotting plant materials. They are comparatively smaller with more delicate bodies and legs.

LARGE FILTH FLIES

House Fly (Musca domestica)

House flies are dull grey, quarter-inch long, with four dark stripes on their body’s middle section, the thorax. They lay eggs on animal feces and garbage. Their white and apodous larvae or legless maggots hatch from eggs to grow half an inch long.

Fully grown larvae crawl away from their food sources to enter the pupal stage, in which they form a dark brown cocoon, thepuparium. Adult house flies can fly one or two miles searching for suitable egg-laying sites.
Blow Flies (Calliphoridae spp.)

They are shiny blue, and green in color and make sounds by beating their wings when they fly. Large numbers of blowflies indoors indicate a dead mouse or bird inside your home. Their larvae develop inside the bodies of dead animals and cause the carrion to bloat.

Flesh Flies (Sarcophagidae spp.)

Flesh flies lay their eggs in carrion. Adults are dark-colored and either grey or black. Common flesh fly species have three dark stripes on the thorax, are slightly larger than house flies, and have a checkerboard pattern on the abdomen.

Stable Fly (Stomoxys calcitrans)

These flies feed on the blood of animals, including humans. Their bites are painful, but these flies do not transmit disease to humans. Females lay eggs in rotting straw, manure, and moist surfaces.

SMALL FILTH FLIES

Fruit Flies (Drosophila spp.)

These flies feed on the blood of animals, including humans. Their bites are painful, but these flies do not transmit disease to humans. Females lay eggs in rotting straw, manure, and moist surfaces.

Phorid Flies (Phoridae spp.)

Phorid flies resemble fruit flies and are tiny, dark-colored flies. They are humpbacked flies because of their arched thorax. Their larvae feed on decomposing organic debris of plants or animals, and their population growth is rapid.

Drain Flies (Psychodidae spp.)

These are ash color flies about one-eighth of an inch long. They have hairy wings and are most common in sewage and near drains. Adults often rest on bathroom walls, and their submerged larvae can survive in the floor, sink, and toilet drain gelatinous muck.When submerged, they extend their breathing tubes to the surface for air. Adults lay 30-100 eggs, and their eggs hatch in forty-eight hours. Their life span is 8-21 days.

Why are flies dangerous?

Flies indicate unhygienic conditions because flies transmit diarrhea, cholera, and dysentery.

Flies have spongy mouthparts, and their body spurs carry unsafe germs as they travel from dirty trash to your food. House flies regurgitate their stomach contents onto your food to liquefy it before ingesting it. They also may contaminate food and surfaces by defecating on such objects. When they move across your food after landing on it, flies contaminate it with disease-causing pathogens.