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Musca domestica

(The Common Housefly)

This is the one which everybody knows. It breeds all over the world in and around houses, rubbish dumps in fact anywhere where there is decaying organic matter...and we certainly throw plenty of that away. It has been suggested that this fly came originally from Africa but nowadays it has followed us to all parts of the earth. In Northern Europe it probably didn't become established until man started keeping domestic animals indoors during the winter, a practice that didn't start until about the beginning of the Iron Age, c. 400 B.C.

Life Cycle and Description


The housefly has a complete metamorphosis with distinct egg, larva or maggot, pupal and adult stages. The house fly overwinters in either the larval or pupal stage under manure piles or in other protected locations. Warm summer conditions are generally optimum for the development of the house fly, and it can complete its life cycle in as little as seven to ten days, and as many as 10 to 12 generations may occur in one summer. Egg: The white eggs, about 1.2 mm in length, are laid singly but pile up in small masses. Each female fly can lay up to 500 eggs in several batches of about 75 to 150 eggs, each over a three to four day period. The number of eggs produced is a function of female size, which is principally a result of larval nutrition.

Larva: The mature larva is 3 to 9 mm long, typical creamy whitish in color, cylindrical but tapering toward the head. The head contains one pair of dark hooks. The posterior spiracles are slightly raised and the spiracular openings are sinuous slits which are completely surrounded by an oval black border. The legless maggots emerge from the eggs in warm weather within eight to 20 hours, and they immediately feed on and develop in the material where the eggs were laid. The fullgrown maggots have a greasy, cream-colored appearance and are 8 to 12 mm long. The larvae go through three instars. When the maggots are full-grown, they crawl up to 50 feet to a dried, cool place near breeding material and transform to the pupal stage. High manure moisture favors the survival of house fly larvae. Pupa: The pupae are dark brown and 8 mm long. The pupal stage is passed in a pupal case formed from the last larval skin which varies in color from yellow, red, brown, to black as the pupa ages. The emerging fly escapes from the pupal case through the use of an alternately swelling and shrinking sac, called the ptilinum, on the front of its head which it uses like a pneumatic hammer. Adult: The house fly is 6 to 7 mm long, with the female usually larger than the male. The eyes are reddish and the mouth parts are sponging. The thorax bears four narrow black stripes and there is a sharp upward bend in the fourth longitudinal wing vein. The abdomen is gray or yellowish with dark midline and irregular dark markings on the sides. The underside of the male is yellowish. The sexes can be readily separated by noting the space between the eyes, which in females is almost twice as broad as in males.

Adults usually live 15 to 25 days. The potential reproductive capacity of flies is

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