ALL ABOUT FLIES

Flies carry and transmit diseases including:

Typhoid, cholera, bacillary dysentery, infantile diarrhea, amoebic dysentery, pinworm, roundworm, tapeworm etc...They transmit these diseases by various means including, mouthparts, vomit, body and legs, sticky feet pads and their faeces...

Two species are of most concern:

1. Common housefly (Musca domestica)
• The Common Housefly can lay 4-6 batches of eggs (20 eggs per batch) over a few days. Eggs generally hatch in 12 hours and the maggot stage takes 5 days to complete.
• Full grown maggots migrate to a drier area or soil to pupate. The pupal stage takes 4 days before adult fly emerges.
• Development from egg to adult takes 9-10 days
• Adult flies feed on a variety of material including faeces, meat sugar and milk

2. Blowfly (Chrysomia megacephala)
• Blowflies can lay 100 – 400 eggs in a single batch. The eggs will hatch in about 8 hours.
• After hatching, maggots can take as little as 3 days to mature and reach wandering stage.
• Over 5000 mature maggots can be produced from 300g of food garbage in a single wheelie bin.
• Wandering maggots crawl out at night and enter moist soil where they pupate emerging as adults in 5-7 days
• Adult flies are attracted by smell and feed on a variety of materials including faeces, blood, sugar, milk or any other foodstuff