Meat fly: description, larvae, life time

Flies belong to a group of Diptera, of which there are more than one hundred and fifty thousand species in the world. And only a few of them are carriers of infection, most of them are harmless enough, like butterflies. So which flies should be feared? And why are some of them so indifferent to the carrion? And why do some prefer flowers and fruits?

Family Meat flies

This family includes more than two thousand species. They are found mainly in the northern hemisphere, in zones with a temperate climate. In a hot climate, there are not so many.

In general, the meatfly has a gray color, but there are other colors. Some species are quite large, their length can reach more than two centimeters, but there are also small ones - no more than six millimeters. The larvae of these flies usually develop on rotting meat or on other organics. There are meat flies that lay eggs in other insects, in wounded animals and even in humans.

There are viviparous meat flies, which lay the larvae in a decaying corpse.

Housefly

Some mistakenly take a regular housefly for a meat, but this is not true. The housefly is much smaller, and it is not able to bite the skin, it eats only liquid food, and it needs to be dissolved beforehand in saliva.

Such a fly prefers to lay eggs in a damp rotting environment, for example, in manure. One female can postpone up to 120 eggs at a time, fortunately, the offspring is not derived from all.

Meat fly

The most common meat fly we have is gray, green and padal. These are quite large specimens, much larger than ordinary room, capable of delivering a lot of additional trouble to a person.

Gray Butcherfly

This fly is also called a sarcophagus. It is scaly. It is a big fly, its length reaches 25 millimeters. Gray meat flies have, as it is clear from the name, a gray color with a darker pattern in the form of checkers or lines, with a yellowish-white head "divided" by a black strip. Eyes red, belly white longitudinal lines. The form of the body is oblong, the abdomen is covered with a large bristle, hairy legs.

Gray meat flies are rare guests in a person's dwelling and appear there only if they have something to profit there. The smell of these flies is very developed, and they are able to smell the smell of rotting meat at a very large distance. And they only need to touch the surface of the meat, so that a lot of small worms immediately began to move on it.

Female gray meat flies are viviparous and lay larvae mainly in the carrion. But there are representatives of this family, the larva of which is capable of developing in decaying fruit, feces or in other decomposing organics. There are also species of the fly, the larvae of which are capable of parasitizing other living organisms.

The larva of this fly is characterized by extraintestinal digestion. Sometimes it is able to feed on the larvae of other insects or to practice cannibalism. The larva of the meatfly lives on the carrion for up to 10 days, after which it moves to the soil, where it turns into a pupa, and then into an adult fly.

Pupa of a meatfly can fall into a hibernation, for example, pupae of some species of sarcophagus are able to "oversleep" the whole winter and turn into an adult only in late spring.

The meatfly feeds on the nectar of flowers, and at the same time pollinates them, transferring the pollen to its shaggy paws.

Attitude to gray meat flies, as, indeed, to other types of carrion, can not be unambiguous. Being carriers of infectious diseases, they also serve as a kind of sanitarists in nature. And forensic criminologists by the age of the larva in the decaying corpse are able to establish the time of death.

Green Butcherfly

It is a beautiful fly of a glossy emerald color with smoky wings, which have a slight openwork pattern. The length of a green fly usually does not exceed 8 mm. Has large eyes with a reddish hue, rounded abdomen and white cheeks.

The habitat of the green meat fly are the places of all sorts of uncleanness, decomposing carcasses of animals, manure, waste, but sometimes they are found in flowering plants with a strong flavor. The food consists of rotting organic matter, where it also lays its eggs.

One female is able to lay off about 180 eggs of a grayish or light yellow hue, which she aspires to hide in carrion as deep as possible. The larvae appear in the light after 6-48 hours and continue for another 9 days to develop there. After that, they move into the soil to become a pupa. Depending on weather conditions, the adult fly is formed within 10-17 days.

Larvae of flies - application

White spells, so popular among anglers, are just the larvae of meat flies. Some lovers of fishing take them out on their own, laying out pieces of rotting meat. But many still prefer to buy them in the store, since such "farming" has a rather specific smell, which usually keeps people from similar agricultural production.

Classification of larvae

There are several types of sponges:

• Maggot are the larvae that the blue fallow deer lays. They develop in decaying meat or in fish, and it takes only a few minutes for the fly to fly to the smell. These spells reach a length of 15 mm.
• Gozzer is the larva of the meat blackheads of blue flies. It reaches a size of up to 20 mm and very quickly passes into the pupa stage.
• Gordini - larvae of gray meat flies, grow up to 25 mm, very quickly pupate.
• Pink is a larva of a green butcherfly. Minor spells, the size does not exceed 10 mm.
• Fifa is a larva of a fly of the species of lucilia. Frost resistant sponges with a length of no more than 12 mm.

Lifespan

Reading all the above facts about flies, there is a completely legitimate question: "And how long does an ordinary fly live?". Usually about a month, and for all his life is able to postpone more than 500 eggs. Some species of flies postpone up to 2 thousand eggs. If every larva survived to an adult, then in the third generation the flies would be flooded with the whole world. Fortunately, a relatively small percentage survives, which, meanwhile, is capable of delivering considerable trouble to everyone around them.

Combating uninvited guests

The big fly, buzzing under the ear, is able to deliver not only a comparative inconvenience, but also a carrier of a dangerous disease. They can infect both food products, and infect the infection directly into the human blood. Tuberculosis, typhoid fever, cholera are the few diseases that can infect a person with flies.

The main principle of combating them is maintaining cleanliness. After all, as already mentioned, the flies perfectly smell food and fly just to it. Regularly empty the trash can, clean behind pets, do not leave food open, equip windows with protective nets - these are simple methods that can greatly facilitate the life of a person.

In fact, despite how much the ordinary fly lives , it is able even in its shortest time to bring us many problems. Even without being a carrier of the disease, she can be very bothersome, as she does not have enough insight to understand that she is not happy here, and to look for a quieter place. How many times you would not drive her away, she will come back again and again.

In addition, flying around the room, she marks everything with her secretions. Scientists have calculated that one fly is capable of "marking" at least fifty different places per day. And each of them is a real hotbed of microbes. So in the fight against flies, the rule that "cleanliness is a guarantee of health" works like never before.

By the way, not only a meatfly, but also a small midwife, bothering in the open air, can also be the causative agent of serious diseases. It causes various conjunctivitis and is the cause of many intestinal diseases.