A report on Housefly, Maggot and Histeridae

Head of a female housefly with two large compound eyes and three ocelli

Housefly mouthparts, showing the pseudotracheae, semitubular grooves (dark parallel bands) used for sucking up liquid food

A housefly wing under 250x magnification

Micrograph of the tarsus of the leg showing claws and bristles, including the central one between the two pulvilli known as the empodium

Housefly larva and adult, by Amedeo John Engel Terzi (1872–1956)

Housefly pupae killed by parasitoid wasp larvae: Each pupa has one hole through which a single adult wasp has emerged; the wasp larvae fed on the housefly larvae.

Housefly killed by the pathogenic fungus Entomophthora muscae

Philadelphia Department of Health poster warning the public of housefly hazards (c. 1942)

Detail of a 1742 painting by Frans van der Mijn that uses a housefly in a Renaissance allegory of touch theme

William Blake's illustration of "The Fly" in Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794)

A maggot is the larva of a fly (order Diptera); it is applied in particular to the larvae of Brachycera flies, such as houseflies, cheese flies, and blowflies, rather than larvae of the Nematocera, such as mosquitoes and crane flies.

- Maggot

Also, certain species are used in the control of livestock pests that infest dung and to control houseflies.

- Histeridae

These soon hatch into legless white larvae, known as maggots.

- Housefly

Introducing an environmental control, such as Hister beetles, can also help reduce maggot populations.

- Maggot

Hister beetles feed on housefly larvae in manure heaps and the predatory mite Macrocheles muscae domesticae consumes housefly eggs, each mite eating 20 eggs per day.

- Housefly

Certain species of the Hister beetles follow shortly behind and prey on the maggots and other arthropods present.

- Histeridae

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Fly

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Flies are insects of the order Diptera, the name being derived from the Greek δι- di- "two", and πτερόν pteron "wing".

An Anthomyiidae species showing characteristic dipteran features: large eyes, small antennae, sucking mouthparts, single pair of flying wings, hindwings reduced to clublike halteres

Fossil brachyceran in Baltic amber. Lower Eocene, c. 50 million years ago

Fossil nematoceran in Dominican amber. Sandfly, Lutzomyia adiketis (Psychodidae), Early Miocene, c. 20 million years ago

Gauromydas heros is the largest fly in the world.

Head of a horse-fly showing large compound eyes and stout piercing mouthparts

A head of a fly, showing the two compound eyes and three simple eyes clearly.

A cranefly, showing the hind wings reduced to drumstick-shaped halteres

Life cycle of stable fly Stomoxys calcitrans, showing eggs, 3 larval instars, pupa, and adult

The large bee-fly, Bombylius major, is a Batesian mimic of bees.

Petrus Christus's 1446 painting Portrait of a Carthusian has a musca depicta (painted fly) on a trompe-l'œil frame.

An Anopheles stephensi mosquito drinking human blood. The species carries malaria.

Diptera in research: Drosophila melanogaster fruit fly larvae being bred in tubes in a genetics laboratory

Casu marzu is a traditional Sardinian sheep milk cheese that contains larvae of the cheese fly, Piophila casei.

Other species like Metopia argyrocephala are ovoviviparous, opportunistically depositing hatched or hatching maggots instead of eggs on carrion, dung, decaying material, or open wounds of mammals.

Fruit flies are used as model organisms in research, but less benignly, mosquitoes are vectors for malaria, dengue, West Nile fever, yellow fever, encephalitis, and other infectious diseases; and houseflies, commensal with humans all over the world, spread food-borne illnesses.

Maggots of different species of flies visit corpses and carcases at fairly well-defined times after the death of the victim, and so do their predators, such as beetles in the family Histeridae.