In the warm season, you can meet hordes of flies near cesspools, cattle cemeteries and large garbage piles. Among them, a green fly stands out, which is also called "lucilia" or "green carrion." It bears its name for a reason, since it feeds on carrion, and also lays eggs in the corpses of animals.
Scavenger Fly
Outwardly, the green fly is quite beautiful: its green color with a golden or copper tint casts a metallic sheen, its eyes are red, and its muzzle is silver-metallic. The body of the insect is slightly longer than that of an ordinary housefly, and reaches 15 mm in length.
The illustration below shows an ordinary green fly, the photo of which conveys all the overflows on the back and face.
It lives almost everywhere - in Europe, Siberia, Asia and America.
Breeding
A green fly lays about 150 eggs at a time; in a day, their number can reach five hundred. To protect the offspring from bright sunlight, to which it is very sensitive, the female searches for deep folds or holes in the flesh to fall, and, if possible, gets under the corpse to lay eggs.
The insect is not at all bothered by other scavengers, such as ants, which carry newly laid fly eggs. Her offspring is so numerous that such petty theft will not affect the general population.
Larvae
Larvae of green flies hatch from eggs a day after laying. They are small in size, whitish with a small black head having a mouth opening and two sharp hook-shaped protrusions, which the larva controls: pulls forward, thrusts into rotting flesh, hides. Some sources suggest that these are the modified jaws of the larva, with the help of which it captures microscopic pieces of flesh. This is actually not the case. The larva uses its hooks exclusively as a motor system. By plunging them into the flesh, she pulls up the body, so she has the ability to move.
How to eat larvae
The larva cannot yet bite off pieces of solid food. How does she eat? During the research, an experiment was performed: pieces of slightly dried meat were placed in two flasks, larvae of a green fly were planted on one of them. A few days later, the piece of meat on which the larvae lived became so softened that it looked more like liquid gruel. In this case, a piece of meat in the second flask has not changed. That is, the larvae, secreting a special secret from the mouth, thin out solid food, turning it into a kind of broth, and then eat this broth.
It turns out that they digest food before eating it. In addition, hook-shaped outgrowths on the head of the larva also participate in the process of such digestion. As the larva plunges hooks into the flesh, it secrete digestive juice. It is absorbed into the meat in the places where the hooks were attached.
Having reached a certain age, the larva burrows in the ground, where it pupates. After a while, the lid of the cocoon bursts, and a young green fly appears from under the ground. Having dried the wings a little in the sun, she rushes in search of decaying flesh.
Green flies benefit
The benefits that the carrion fly brings are hard to overestimate:
- an adult eats carrion;
- fly larvae accelerate the process of decay and decomposition of dead flesh.
Thus, the green fly acts as an environmental sanitation worker, destroying rotting remains and speeding up the decomposition process.
It is also known that with the help of the larvae of this insect, surgeons during the Second World War cleared the wounds of rotting flesh.
The harm caused by the green fly
However, the harm caused by the green fly is also obvious. Constantly dwelling among rotting remains, in cesspools, it becomes a peddler of pathogenic bacteria. Flies are carriers of diseases such as:
- dysentery;
- typhoid fever;
- polio;
- brucellosis;
- intestinal myiasis;
- helminthiasis and so on.
For these insects there is no particular difference in how fresh the meat into which it lays its eggs. To do this, both the semi-decomposed corpse of the animal and a fresh piece of meat on your dining table will do. During heat treatment, the eggs will certainly die, but, you must admit, this is a little comfort. In addition, many housewives try raw minced salt, risking to introduce all kinds of bacteria and green fly eggs, some of which are able to take root in the intestines, causing intestinal myiasis.
Those who breed livestock are aware of cases where the seemingly small wound received by an animal through negligence turned into a big problem. She did not heal for a long time, the animal began to hurt and sometimes even died. The green fly that laid eggs there is to blame. The larvae hatching from the eggs turned the wound into a digestible compote, thereby worsening the condition of the animal.
A case is known when a patient of a Canadian clinic, a green fly laid eggs in her eyes and nose. One hundred twenty larvae hatched from them. At the time of detection, each larva had already reached a size of approximately 5 millimeters. This suggests that after the eggs of the green fly were laid, it took about one and a half to two days. Upon admission to the clinic, no larvae were detected in the woman’s body, which means infection directly in the institution. However, the doctors relieved themselves of all responsibility for the incident, citing the fact that there were no windows in the ward of the woman, and the fly could not get into the clinic.
Where the carrion fly lives
Green flies in an apartment, as a rule, do not take root. Even if one such one flies into the house out of curiosity, the living conditions will not suit her. A green fly needs dead rotting flesh in order to lay eggs. Therefore, scavengers live near cattle burial grounds, but are found in the garden on flowering plants, as well as near pens for keeping livestock.
If you suddenly noticed that green flies appeared in the house, this may mean that perhaps somewhere in the basement or in the immediate vicinity there is a dead animal - a cat, rat, dog, etc.
How to destroy green flies
Do not wait for green flies to fill all the space around. They must be disposed of as soon as you notice at least one adult. But before you get rid of green flies, you need to eliminate the cause of their appearance, that is, find rotting flesh that could attract these insects and throw them away from your home.
As a rule, these measures are enough to get rid of unpleasant insects in the house. But it is worth remembering that flies live near corrals for livestock, and this is fraught with the fact that insects can annoy animals, lay eggs in their ears, nose, random wounds, etc. In this case, regular treatment of livestock premises is necessary.
For a competent fight against the green fly, it is better to contact specialists from the sanitary-epidemiological station who will quickly and competently carry out the elimination of insects.
Pest Control Methods:
- fumigation - elimination by means of toxic aerosols, gels, smoke bombs , etc .;
- pest control - chemical treatment of the main places of accumulation of insects.
Prevention
Of course, a problem is always easier to prevent than to fix. Therefore, it is necessary to maintain basic sanitary conditions:
- get rid of household waste in the house on time;
- Do not leave naked foods on the table;
- place a mosquito net on the windows;
- regularly clean pens for pets;
- examine animals for wounds to avoid infection by green fly larvae;
- treat manure heaps with biothermal agents;
- Dispose of the dead animals in time, as well as pests such as rats, moles and others;
- latrines to disinfect with insecticides.
Tansy essential oil repels flies, causing paralysis of their limbs. Bouquets of these flowers, hung in the room for livestock or standing in a vase in the apartment, will help to get rid of annoying flies for a long time.