Chapter 4 - Flies

Flies

Fun Facts About Flies

• Over 100,000 species of flies live on earth.
• Flies lay their eggs on fruit, food, other animals and even rotting flesh. Their larvae are known as maggots. They look like bits of rice.
• Flies don’t have teeth. Instead, they have a long tongue called a proboscis, which sucks up food like a straw. Some flies drink nectar or blood. House flies like the food we eat. When a fly lands on your lunch, it vomits on the food. Acids in the vomit dissolve the food so the fly can suck it up. 
• Flies like to eat manure, which is animal poop, or old garbage. Some of the germs from these materials can stay on their feet or mouth parts. When a fly lands on your food, those germs get on your food.
• Flies carry disease. During the Spanish-American War, 5,000 soldiers died from typhoid, a disease spread by flies. Only 4,000 soldiers actually died in the war.

Flies is insecta group of insects and in diphtheria Order which only has two wings than other insects that have four or more wings. Flies also have 4 complete life cycle or as known as complete metarmorphosis and most of them lives in 30 days.

3 types of flies in Malaysia

• Houseflies
• Greenflies
• Tse-tse flies

Houseflies

• Insecta cosmopolitan class type of insecticide.
• Housefly very wide spread and available in many areas such as livestock and landfill.
• Involves four stages, egg, larva, pupa or chrysalis and finally adults.
• Breed in hot weather
• The eggs are white 1-2 mm in length, can hatch up to 500 eggs within 5 days.
• Hatch into larvae within 8-20 hours.
• Adult flies can fly as far as 1-2 km and can fly as far as 20 km, live for 15-35 days, inactive at night.
• Females are usually larger, can lengthen the stomach to form one end of ovipositor used to spawn, sometimes male flies he has a great eye for a head. 

Flies usually eat rotten food and unclean meat. and sweet food such as honey and fruits

Flies habitat usually in garbage, dead animal, decaying or rotting.

If a fly landed on something, the  germs will be attached to the mouth, feet, mouth, and also tiny feathers which covering his body, and will spread to those who eat it. A disease common diseases carried by flies are as typhoid fever and food poisoning or it may carry worms in the body that would cause maggot.

Ways to prevent flies.

• Get rid of flies breeding place.
• Maintaining the cleanliness in residential areas are like in cans trash cans
• Get rid of flies holes
• DIY flies trap