They're a common pest around most homes, but how much do you know about the average house fly? Get the buzz on this household insect.
The House Fly - Life Cycle
These are the four distinct stages in an average house fly's life:
- Egg: Depending on the size of a female house fly, she can lay up to 500 eggs in a three to four day period. Eggs are white in color and are usually less than half and inch in size.
- Larvae: Larvae are commonly referred to as maggots. Maggots emerge from the eggs within eight to 20 hours of being laid. Larvae begin eating whatever they can find in the area they were laid. They prefer warm, moist environments to grow in.
- Pupa: After about four to 10 days, a maggot will move to higher, drier ground to move into the pupa stage of its life. This process take about three to six days and is where the maggot encases inself in a reddish-brown skin where the final stages of development take place.
- Adult: Once the adult house fly hatches from the pupal stage, it has an approximate life span of 15 to 30 days. Females are able to start producing eggs after two days of life and will continue to lay eggs for about a month. Female house flys are usually larger than the males.
The House Fly - A Day in the Life
You will find house flies pretty much everywhere there are humans or animals. Flies love things like garbage, manure and anything else that left out in a warm environment (like the chicken you left thawing on your counter all day). House flies don't feed off of human flesh - they get their nutrients from spitting saliva on their food, which liquifies it so they can suck it up with their sponge-like mouths.
The House Fly - Did U Know?
- House flies can travel up to six miles in 24 hours, but they usually prefer to stay close by their breeding ground.
- The easiest way to keep flies out of your home is to keep things clean. Don't leave food lying around, make sure you take out the garbage on a regular basis and wipe up messes right away.
- Fly investations are often found on farms because it is hard to keep them from breeding in the readily available manure.
- House flies like to perch on things like wire or string.
- The newest show on Disney, The Buzz on Maggie, follows the life of a family of flies that live in the fictional town of Stickyfeet.
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