17 Interesting House Fly Facts That You Did Not Know

The housefly is a fly that is believed to have evolved, possibly in the Middle East, in the Cenozoic Era. After that, it spread all over the world.

House fly is the most common of flies that can be found in houses. Adult flies are gray to black, with four longitudinal, dark lines on the thorax, a pair of membranous wings, and slightly hairy bodies⚰️. 

Also, the feeding🧑‍🍼, breeding🤰🏼, and moving habits can be quite interesting. So, in this article, we will now discuss some amazing facts about house flies.

Interesting House Fly Facts:-

They are relatively young insects on Earth.

Though the Cenozoic Era looks ancient to humans, the house fly is still not that old among most insects. Flies appeared on Earth about 250 million years ago, during the Permian period. However, houseflies are a lot younger among them.

Another important fact is that they appeared before the Cretaceous period, which is the time when the infamous meteor strike believed to have destroyed the dinosaurs 🦖 would have occurred.

They live almost everywhere.

Though most likely, houseflies were born in Asia, after that, they spread all over the world in a relationship where the flies and humans have a symbiotic relationship. As humans 👨‍👧‍👦 traveled to new places throughout history and by various means of locomotion, house flies also traveled with them. 

To complete this assumption, you will not see the common house flies in wilderness habitats without humans.

If humans disappeared because of a nuclear holocaust, the house flies might likely cease to exist, unlike cockroaches, who might still be there.

They are active during the day. 

Unlike many other pests like bugs and mosquitoes🦟, which love to roam around in the dark, the activities of the houseflies are tied to human activity to a great extent.

As a result, they remain active during the day, when we humans are awake, and they rest at night just like humans.

This proves the symbiotic relationship 👩‍❤️‍👨between houseflies and human beings. Thus, to control houseflies, you must target them during the daytime.

These insects can live for 15 to 30 days.

Though this may not look interesting, it is not true that flies only live for a day. Some flies live for just 24 hours, such as mayflies.

However, common houseflies can live for 15 to 30 days. Some of them have been famous for living for almost 60 days in some specific situations.

Also, according to several researchers 👨‍🔬, houseflies may have a favorite spot for resting. That spot is usually close to their food spot, where they can rest at night.

House flies live on liquid diets.

Flies tend to live on a diet that is mainly based on liquids. As they do not have the mouthparts required to chew food, they have to depend on a liquid diet.

Actually, a housefly can regurgitate digestive juices onto solid foods😋. Then these juices break down the food into small pieces, allowing them to use their proboscis or mouthparts for drinking the meal.

These insects can walk upside down.

The specific anatomy of a house fly allows it to walk and even climb on almost all surfaces, whether it’s vertical, horizontal, or even upside down. 

This reason is each foot of a housefly contains two fat foot pads known as pulvilli. This pulvillus contains tiny hairs 💇🏻‍♀️that can create a glue-like substance made of oils and sugars, which offer them an excellent grip, great for scaling any surface.

Females houseflies mate only once

This may not sound common, but an adult female housefly will actually mate 💑 just once during their entire life. After the mating procedure, she will lay from 350 to 2000 eggs in several batches over a period of several days.

On the other hand, a male housefly will actually mate with several females over its entire lifetime. There is a specific period of “courtship” where the male housefly looks for the right person. Their ideal target is a 7-day-old, large-sized female in the prime of her life.

They may lay eggs on humans.

One disgusting fact about most types of flies is that their tendency to lay eggs at the nearest convenient spot may result in them laying eggs 🐣 on humans.

If an individual has an open wound, for example, or if a person has poor hygiene, it may be possible for flies to lay eggs within their skin.

In the rare situation that it occurs, maggots will feed on blood and flesh before bursting through as they turn into adult flies. This is common for screw flies and bot flies.

Houseflies have a super-efficient reproductive cycle.

As mentioned earlier, female houseflies lay eggs in multiple rounds. Each time, they lay between 75 to 100 eggs at a go. Houseflies usually lay eggs on nutrient-rich surfaces like human excrement, animal manure, or other decaying matter.

The larva of houseflies which will become maggots🦟, hatch out within 12 to 24 hours. They become adult flies in common subtropical temperatures within 4 to 13 days. However, they could take over twice as long in much cooler climates.

It’s vital to eliminate nutrient-rich environments.

A female housefly will lay about 500 to 800 eggs on average in her life. Thus, they can add a lot of houseflies to the mix, and hence, it is crucial to eliminate nutrient-rich environments around your home where houseflies can lay eggs that hatch out successfully.

Due to these strange breeding and feeding habits, these flies come into contact with different types of disease-causing bacteria, such as E. coli and Salmonella. Thus, house flies will often help spread harmful 🤮bacteria while passing them by contaminating food and utensils.

Flies have compound eyes.

In the major part of the head of a housefly, there is a pair of complex eyes. There are some 3000 to 6000 eyes within each eye.

The eyes of these flies offer an entire panorama of what is happening to the right, left, in front of, and also above the flying insect.

Unlike vertebrates, houseflies cannot focus on particular details. The eyes of these flies are developed to detect anomalies in their surrounding areas, including movement. Thus, you can say that they can sense both opportunities and threats in their surroundings.

They have three simple eyes, along with the compound ones

In addition to having complex eyes👀, houseflies have three ocelli. These are simple eyes present in the middle parts of their foreheads. These simple eyes help them navigate, like a compass, so they can know which way is up.

As houseflies are diurnal, they usually gravitate toward sunlit spaces. This is the reason why you see them buzzing around windows during the daytime.

They have a functioning set of wings. 

A housefly can flap its main wings 200 to 300 times per second and can reach up to 5 miles or 8 kilometers per hour. As you may have already noticed, they can fly with power and precision. They can perform precision zigzags, instant liftoff, backpedaling, and even spiral movements.

This excellent maneuverability is one of the important reasons why houseflies are difficult to keep out, and they may enter your house through the slightest opening.

They can see behind them.

Unlike many creatures, the eyes of flies cannot move, but they can be able to see really close to 360 degrees.

They can even see behind them, with the help of thousands of tiny lenses known as ommatidia within their eyes. This enables them to navigate any approaching danger.

Also, they poop a lot. On average, these insects poop 💩every couple of minutes. This is also a significant contributor to the spread of disease🤒. Thus, they can spread infectious organisms and bacteria very often.

Houseflies don’t have teeth.

As houseflies do not have teeth, they get their nutrients by slurping fluids using a proboscis or a trunk-like nose.

The end part of this proboscis is known as the labellum. It ends in a sponge-like mouth, which this insect uses to slurp its food. There are two small feelers at the top of the mouth, called maxillary palps, which enables them to taste their food.

Also, flies have a very strong 💪🏽sense of smell. With this, they can often find out and arrive at food sources. They can even smell rotting flesh from a 7 km distance.

If they miss one wing, they will fly around in circles

Houseflies’ wings are delicate instruments. Though they look like to have only one set of wings, they actually have tiny secondary wings called halters.

These are present below the main pair of wings. Halters help flies balance in the air by flapping them at a great speed during flight.

If one of those halters gets detached or damaged, the insect must fly around in circles. However, if both halters are not present, flying would be impossible for them.

Many species could become extinct without them.

Many species, such as lizards, frogs, bats, spiders, birds, and fish, have flown in their diet. Thus, the extinction of the flies might cause a significant disruption in the food chain.

Also, flies help in the decomposition procedure of carcasses and various other rotting matter. Thus, they help enrich the soil, which can be perfect for the growth of new lives.

Thus, houseflies are both common and highly adaptable insects that can be potential disease vectors. However, they are still vital for our ecosystems.

At the end of this article, we learned about 17 really amazing facts about this unique insect called houseflies. These facts offer us a clear picture of this interesting insect in our ecosystem. To know more, you may visit our website.