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Important Fly Facts III
From PennState University

18 Billion Flies Can't Be Wrong!

House Flies (Musca domestica)
Authored by: Steve Jacobs, Sr. Extension Associate
University of Nebraska Department of Entomology

Introduction House flies are not the neatest of insects. They visit such places as dumps, sewers, and garbage heaps. They feed on fecal matter, discharges from wounds and sores, sputum, and all sorts of moist decaying matter such as spoiled fish, eggs and meat.

Economic Importance House flies are strongly suspected of transmitting at least 65 diseases to humans, including typhoid fever, dysentery, cholera, poliomyelitis, yaws, anthrax, tularemia, leprosy and tuberculosis. Flies regurgitate and excrete wherever they come to rest and thereby mechanically transmit disease organisms.

Biology House flies can be easily identified by the four dark, longitudinal stripes on top of the thorax, or middle body region. They vary in length from l/8-l/4 of an inch. Their mouth parts are adapted for sponging up liquids; they cannot bite. These flies can only ingest liquid food. They feed on attractive solid food by regurgitating saliva on it. The saliva liquifies the solid material which is then sponged up with the proboscis. They require water since they are continually salivating and voiding liquids. Fly specks seen on many surfaces visited by house flies are the excreted wastes.   (Continued next page)