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Housefly

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Housefly
A housefly
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Arthropoda
Class:
Insecta
Order:
Diptera
Family:
Muscidae
Subfamily:
Muscinae
Tribe:
Muscini
Genus:
Musca
Species:
M. domestica
Binomial name
Musca domestica
Subspecies
  • calleva Walker 1849
  • domestica Linnaeus 1758

The housefly (also house fly, house-fly or common housefly), Musca domestica, is the most common of all flies flying in homes, and indeed one of the most widely distributed insects; it is often considered a pest that can carry serious diseases.

Physical description

Anatomy of a housefly

The adults are 6–9 mm long. Their thorax is gray, with four longitudinal dark lines on the back. The underside of their abdomen is yellow[citation needed], and their whole body is covered with hair-like projections. The females are slightly larger than the males, and have a much larger space between their red compound eyes.

Like most Diptera (meaning "two-winged"), houseflies have only one pair of wings; the hind pair is reduced to small halteres that aid in flight stability. Characteristically, the media vein (M1+2 or fourth long vein of the wing) shows a sharp upward bend.

Species that appear similar to the housefly include:

  • The lesser house fly, Fannia canicularis, is somewhat smaller, more slender, and the media vein is straight.
  • The stable fly, Stomoxys calcitrans, has piercing mouthparts and the media vein is only slightly curved.

Life cycle

Each female fly can lay approximately 500 eggs in several batches of about 75 to 150, eggs [1]. The eggs are white and are about 1.2 mm in length. Within a day, larvae (maggots) hatch from the eggs; they live and feed in (usually dead and decaying) organic material, such as garbage or faeces. They are pale-whitish, 3-9 mm long, thinner at the mouth end, and have no legs. They live at least one week. At the end of their third instar, the maggots crawl to a dry cool place and transform into pupae, colored reddish or brown and about 8 mm long. The adult flies then emerge from the pupae. (This whole cycle is known as complete metamorphosis.) The adults live from two weeks to a month in the wild, or longer in benign laboratory conditions. After having emerged from the pupae, the flies cease to grow; small flies are not young flies, but are indeed the result of getting insufficient food during the larval stage.[2]

The male mounts the female from behind

Some 36 hours after having emerged from the pupa, the female is receptive for mating. The male mounts her from behind to inject sperm. Copulation takes between a few seconds to a couple of minutes.[2] Normally the female mates only once, storing the sperm to use it repeatedly for laying several sets of eggs. Males are territorial: they will defend a certain territory against other males and will attempt to mount any females that enter that territory.[citation needed]

Housefly pupae killed by parasitic wasp larvae. Each pupa has one hole through which a single adult wasp emerged; feeding occurs during the wasp's larva stage.
Illustration of a housefly

The flies depend on warm temperatures; generally, the warmer the temperature the faster the flies will develop. In winter, most of them survive in the larval or the pupa stage in some protected warm location.[2]

The average lifespan of an adult housefly is approximately 15 to 25 days[citation needed].

Behavior

Houseflies can take in only liquid foods. They spit out saliva on solid foods to predigest it, and then suck it back in. They also regurgitate partly digested matter and pass it again to the abdomen.

The flies can walk on vertical planes, and can even hang upside-down from ceilings. This is accomplished with the surface tension of liquids secreted by glands near their feet. When they are not flying, flies continually preen themselves to aid in digestion and remove excess excrement. [citation needed]

Flies have a very highly-evolved evasion reaction which helps to ensure their survival. It is possible to confuse a fly's evasion system by swatting it with two objects simultaneously from different directions. The holes in a fly swatter minimize the air current that warns the fly of being hit, whilst reducing air resistance and increasing speed of the swat[citation needed].

In 2008 it was discovered that a fly anticipates the approach of a threat, calculating the angle of attack, and alters its stance ready to make the most appropriate getaway. This evasive action, which allows the fly to jump away in the opposite direction, takes place within 200 ms.[3]

Houseflies release a pheromone called muscalure that serves both aggregation and sexual attraction purposes.

Sex determination

The housefly is an object of biological research, mainly because of one remarkable quality: the sex determination mechanism. Although a wide variety of sex determination mechanisms exist in nature (e.g. male and female heterogamy, haplodiploidy, environmental factors) the way sex is determined is usually fixed within one species. However, the housefly exhibits many different mechanisms for sex determination, such as male heterogamy (like most insects and mammals), female heterogamy (like birds) and maternal control over offspring sex. This makes the housefly one of the most suitable species to study the evolution of sex determination.[4]

Evolution

Even though the order of flies (Diptera) is much older, true houseflies evolved in the beginning of the Cenozoic era, some 65 million years ago.[5] House flies feed on liquid or semi-liquid substances beside solid material which has been softened by saliva or vomit. Because of their high intake of food, they deposit feces constantly, one of the factors that makes the insect a dangerous carrier of pathogens. Although they are domestic flies, usually confined to the human habitations, they can fly for several miles from the breeding place. They are active only in daytime and rest at night e.g. at the corners of rooms, ceiling hangings, etc.

Housefly as a vector of disease

Mechanical transmission of organisms on its hairs, mouthparts, vomitus and feces:

As a causative agent of diseases

Accidental myiasis.

References

  1. ^ Stuart M Bennett (2003). "Housefly".
  2. ^ a b c Anthony DeBartolo, BUZZOFF! THE HOUSEFLY HAS MADE A PEST OF HIMSELF FOR 25 MILLION YEARS, Chicago Tribune, June 5, 1986
  3. ^ "Gotcha! How to swat a fly, and know that it will die", The Independent, 29 August 2008
  4. ^ Dübendorfer A, Hediger M, Burghardt G, Bopp D. Musca domestica, a window on the evolution of sex-determining mechanisms in insects. Int J Dev Biol. 2002, 46(1):75-9.
  5. ^ Brian M. Wiegmann, David K. Yeates, Jeffrey L. Thorne, Hirohisa Kishino, a fly's head, showing compound eyes and hair
  6. ^ Szalanski, A.L., C.B. Owens, T. McKay, and C.D. Steelman. 2004. Detection of Campylobacter sp., and E. coli O157:H7 in filth flies (Diptera: Muscidae) by polymerase chain reaction. Medical and Veterinary Entomology 18: 241-246.
  7. ^ Brazil, S.M. C.D. Steelman, and A.L. Szalanski. 2007. Detection of pathogen DNA from filth flies (Diptera: Muscidae) using filter paper spot cards. Journal of Agricultural and Urban Entomology 24:(1) (in press).

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Musca domestica.
Wikispecies has information related to Musca domestica.

[[simple:Housefly

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