Guardian Nature School Team Contact Blog Project Noah Facebook Project Noah Twitter

A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife

Join Project Noah!
nature school apple icon

Project Noah Nature School visit nature school

House Fly

Musca domestica

Description:

It is the most common of all domestic flies, accounting for about 90% of all flies in human habitations. The adults are 8–12 mm long. Their thorax is gray, with four longitudinal dark lines on the back. The whole body is covered with hair-like projections. The females are slightly larger than the males, and have a much larger space between their red compound eyes. Maggots hatch from eggs; they live and feed in (usually dead and decaying) organic material, such as garbage or feces. They are pale-whitish, 3–9 mm long, thinner at the mouth end, and have no legs.

Habitat:

Yard,garbage,house

Notes:

Houseflies feed on feces, open sores, sputum, and moist decaying organic matter such as spoiled food, eggs and flesh. Houseflies can take in only liquid foods. They spit out saliva on solid foods to predigest it, and then suck it back in. They also regurgitate partly digested matter and pass it again to the abdomen.

Species ID Suggestions



Sign in to suggest organism ID

1 Comment

keithp2012
keithp2012 13 years ago

Housefly?

keithp2012
Spotted by
keithp2012

New York, USA

Spotted on Jun 15, 2010
Submitted on Sep 7, 2010

Spotted for Mission

Related Spottings

Musca housefly Fly Housefly

Nearby Spottings

Crane Fly Pair of Syrphid flies Tiger Crane Fly Frit Fly
Noah Guardians
Noah Sponsors
join Project Noah Team

Join the Project Noah Team