Facts on The Common Fly

The housefly, Musca domestica, is a small, two-winged fly, gray with dark stripes, often found in and around human habitations. Houseflies are major pests. If it  has recently walked in excrement, it may transmit pathogens causing typhoid, cholera, dysentery, leprosy, poliomyelitis, and infectious hepatitis, as well as the eggs of parasitic worms. Many hundreds of thousands of people living along Africa’s rivers are permanently blinded by small roundworms introduced by the bite of the blackfly.

Flies also spread disease and parasites to animals. Myiasis is the infection of an animal with fly larvae (maggots). Common in cattle, sheep, and deer, myiasis can also occur in humans when certain species of flies are attracted to ulcerated skin, where they lay eggs; the hatched larvae then burrow into the skin. Depending on the type of fly, the larvae remain in the skin and cause boil-like lesions, or they wander extensively through the body and cause damage to various organs. Intestinal myiasis occurs when humans ingest food containing the eggs of larvae.

Each adult female fly lays several hundred eggs in decaying vegetable matter, including manure, compost, and garbage. The larvae, or maggots, may complete their growth in as little as a week, with five more days spent in the pupae stage. The pupae is defenseless but generally escapes predators because it is dark brown and buried in soil or heaps of waste.  Six or more generations may hatch in a single summer, resulting in a VAST number of flies.

Extensive use of insecticides has caused many housefly populations to develop resistance to chemicals that formerly killed them. Today it is recognized that chemical insecticides not only harm the environment but pose a real threat to children and adults. Good sanitation, intelligent pest management along with a safe, effective, non-chemical fly trap, such as the Rid-Max Fly Trap, are the best methods of fly control.

Keep in mind that when searching for food, houseflies will follow each other.  They watch each other constantly; when one finds food, all of the others gather to eat. This fact is a big part of the success of the Rid-Max Fly Trap, as it traps the flies alive and their buzzing activity in the trap attracts many other flies to the trap. The buzzing flies release their own natural pheromones which aid in luring even more unwitting insects to the trap. Disposal of garbage, manure, and other fly-breeding materials and use of the Rid-Max Fly Trap to catch any breeding flies that are in the area will dramatically reduce flies.