musca domestica

musca domestica

Musca domestica Linnaeus, 1758, known by the common names fly home, fly-from-home and mosquito, is a species of Diptera braquícero (flies) of Muscidae. It is one of the most common insects and a fixture in most of the Earth's climate. The fly can land on food and contaminate it with bacteria, responsible for the spread of numerous diseases.

Description

M. domestica adults specimens can measure about 5-8 mm long. It features gray coloring in the chest with four longitudinal lines on the back. The lower part of the abdomen is yellowish. The body is covered with the relatively long.

The compound eyes are reddish in color.

Females are slightly larger than males and have a greater spacing between the eyes.

They have two functional wings with the other pair converted into beams (or dumbbell) that stabilize the flight.

Each female can lay about 8000 white eggs, about 1.2 mm long. 24 hours after laying, is hatching of larvae, which feed on organic debris rich in nutrients. Feature pale and 3 to 9 mm long, spindle-shaped, with the end without legs and mouth. When power is enough, they turn into pupae with about 8 mm length and color ranging from red to brown. When complete metamorphosis, the adult breaks one end of the pupa with a circular cut, emerges and flies in search of counterparts to mate and complete their life cycle. Adults can live a fortnight in the wild and can reach longer periods of life in the laboratory.

The complete life cycle of a fly in the natural environment varies from 25 to 30 days. The housefly has 12 chromosomes.

Flies and humans

The species easily coexists with humans, with a tendency to aggregate, although they are little social insects. Domestic-flies may be carriers of infectious diseases that can spread to feed on human food that contaminates.

The route of food contamination is twofold: by contact of the feet and ductor mouthparts, particularly through the gastric fluids and food scraps previously ingested that regurgitate before feeding. Some of the diseases likely to vectorial transport by M. domestica are typhoid fever, cholera, salmonellosis, dysentery bacilli, tuberculosis, anthrax and also some parasitic worms. Exceptionally can also cause myiasis.

Some varieties can be immune to insecticides. These insects are considered one of the worst household pests, surpassing mosquitoes, ants and cockroaches. Although there are homemade methods to try to keep them away, the house cleaning by specialized companies is still the most effective method of control of this urban pest.

Its larva is very useful in forensic medicine and fishing. The larval stage of development can help in determining the elapsed time since the death of a person. Once the larvae feeds only dead rotten meat and food, there were experiments in a controlled environment, to introduce the larvae on wounds, eliminating rotten meat, avoiding gangrene.