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House fly Facts

House fly Facts
House flies are the most famous of 300 000 species of flies. They can be found all over the world. Human flies developed 65 million years ago. They can survive in all habitats where people can survive, because they are accustomed to the life near humans. Human flies are pests because they easily reproduce and transmit numerous diseases. People apply various insecticides to eradicate them, but they are still very numerous and even resistant to some of those chemicals. On the other hand, house flies are beneficial because they accelerate recycling process by decomposing organic waste.
Interesting House fly Facts:
House fly is small insect that can reach ΒΌ of inch in length.
House fly is grey in color. It has four dark stripes on the back side of the body.
Unlike other insects, house fly has only one pair of membranous wings. Second pair of wings is reduced and looks like a pair of miniature drumsticks. This pair of wings (known as "halters") is used for balancing during the flight.
House flies are able to move their wings 200 times per second.
House fly can fly at the speed of 5 miles per hour.
House fly produces sticky substance which keeps the fly firmly attached to the ground (it acts like glue after landing).
House fly has red compound eyes. Each eye contains 4000 lenses that enable visualization of different pictures at the same time. Despite huge number of lenses, house fly has poor eyesight.
House fly relies mostly on the sense of smell when it searches for food. Sense of smell is located in the antennas.
House fly eats sugary liquids and different kinds of organic waste. All food needs to be turned into liquid before ingestion because fly does not have teeth and ability to chew food. House fly spits digestive juices on the food to decompose it before swallowing.
House flies are carriers of numerous pathogenic bacteria. Gangrene, tuberculosis, dysentery, anthrax, plague and different types of poisoning are just some of diseases transmitted by flies.
House flies defecate every couple of minutes. This is one of the factors that facilitate transmission of diseases.
House flies are active during the day. They rest during the night.
Females can lay up to 2500 eggs usually on the food they eat. House flies undergo complete metamorphosis: egg will transform into larvae, larvae will transform into pupa and pupa will give rise to adult insect. Complete development lasts 10 days.
House flies have incredible high reproductive capacity. Without natural predators, one couple of flies and their offspring would be able to cover all continents on Earth to the height of 18 feet after couple of months of reproduction.
House fly can survive from 30 to 60 days.


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