Key Features:
"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 membranous wings. The large compound eyes take up most of the head and are wider apart in the female than the male of the species.

Biology:
The smaller Lesser Housefly rejoicing in 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 and 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.

Distribution:
House flies, as the name implies, are common in houses and other areas where there are food sources readily available.

Significance:
Houseflies may transmit a wide range of bacterial diseases. They feed by vomiting saliva on to the food surface, treading it in and sucking up the resulting liquid. In the course of doing so, the fly contaminates the food with bacteria from its gut and its feet. Thus, it may transmit food poisoning, dysentery, typhoid or cholera in countries where these occur. The eggs of parasitic worms may also be carried by flies.

Control:
An integrated approach to fly control is the most effective, utilising good sanitation, sparing use of space sprays and electric fly traps and killers.

If you have a problem with house flies, Safeguard can help you! Contact us today for more information.