"If you followed a fly for a day,
you wouldn't eat for a week". The Common
Housefly and the Lesser Housefly are the
most widespread household flies. The adult
is 7-8mm long, grey in colour with black
stripes on the back, with a single pair
of veined membraneous wings. The large compound
eyes take up most of the head and are wider
apart in the female than the male of the
species. The smaller Lesser Housefly rejoicing
ni the scientific name Fannia canicularis,
is the one that cruises around light fittings,
abruptly changing direction in mid-flight.
The Housefly has a sticky pad on each of
its six hairy feet, and these enable it
to walk upside down on ceilings or crawl
up windows. Houseflies complete their life
cycle of egg, maggot, pupa, adult in a week
during warm weather. The eggs are laid in
batches of about 120 on rotting organic
matter and the legless white maggots burrow
into this food until ready to pupate in
loose soil or rubbish. The answer to "where
do flies go in the winter?" is that
some hibernate, but most pass the winter
in the pupal stage. Houseflies may transmit
a wide range of bacterial diseases.
