For many rural people, horseflies are a real disaster. I recall that even Pushkin lamented in his novel in verse that flies and mosquitoes prevented the enjoyment of red summer. Probably, the great poet has not yet encountered bull horsefly, otherwise he would have been given a special place in poetry. Or maybe Alexander Sergeyevich simply included him in the category of flies. After all, both of them belong to the same detachment - Diptera.
Horseflies - large bloodsucker flies
Any representative of the vulture annoys warm-blooded animals with their bites. But bull horsefly is among the first in this rating. He bites very painfully, cutting the body with his stylet, located near his mouth. Moreover, it lets substance into the wound so that the blood does not clot longer. Because of this, the bite site becomes inflamed, itchy. Maybe even in an animal or a person, the temperature rises from this, their health worsens. With multiple bites, high intoxication was registered in people, which had to be treated in a hospital.
This insect, after all, is just called that - bovine horsefly. But in fact, he does not disdain anyone. Cows and horses that are on a leash, if they are attacked by a lot of horseflies, break down and run away from these places. It also happens that an animal, tormented by stinging insects, rushes into an impassable thicket so that the branches of trees and bushes rid them of torment, enter the water and become stuck in swamps.
Well, if they return to their place of detention. But often, cattle that have lost their orientation from pain can get lost and cannot find a way back, catching themselves on a leash of bushes or tree trunks, die without water and drink. And swamps do not always let go of their prey.
If, at the very least, you can bring down a painfully stinging insect with its tail, legs, horns, then it is almost impossible to shake them off the head and muzzle. Caring owners even put on specially tailored sweatshirts on their pets, which bull horsefly cannot cut through. Some even manage to make stockings and put them on the legs of the cattle in order to protect the poor animal from this scourge.
Not just bitten - infected with a disease!
Bull-horsefly - an insect extremely harmful. In addition to the fact that this bloodsucker annoys cattle with its bites, it is a distributor of various diseases. This is tularemia, and anthrax, and filariasis, and trypanosomiasis, and polio.
Bullfinch does not disdain to taste the roofs of corpses of three days ago. And this is even worse than the transfer of infection from one living creature to another. After all, if the animal fell precisely due to a deadly disease, then there is no guarantee that the insect will not infect it with humans or livestock.
Scientific classification
This insect belongs to the type of arthropods. Bullfly is a species of diptera insects. Suborder of this insect is Short-billed. Its scientific name is Tabanus bovinus. He is part of the horsefly family. Their females are components of the midge.
Archaeologists find the remains of the ancestors of modern horseflies. Their approximate habitat is the Oligocene.
Appearance
Bull horsefly is a large fly. It reaches a size of 2.4 centimeters. This is the largest insect among dipterans.
The body of the insect is painted in a dark brown color with blackish stripes. The breast is covered with yellow-black hairs. The abdomen itself in horsefly is flat, consists of segments. In the middle of each tergite there is a gray-yellow or white elongated triangle with concave sides. A yellow-red stripe runs along the lateral edges of the abdomen.
The wings of bull flies are brown, transparent. Behind two well-developed wings are two ground beetles.
The eyes of the insect are large, with multi-colored iridescent stains. In females, a visible dividing strip passes between them. A bull male bullfly differs from it in that it has an almost invisible inter-eye, it is so small.
External differences between heterosexual individuals are called sexual dimorphism. In horseflies, it is also expressed in the fact that the abdomen of the male is pointed at the end, while in the female it is round.
Bull flies spread
This is one of the most tenacious creatures on Earth. Bull horsefly is an insect that lives in almost all corners of Eurasia and even in Africa - in the north-west of the continent. It can be found even in the mountains, 2 km above sea level. There is no horsefly only, perhaps, in places of permafrost and in a desert absolutely devoid of vegetation.
And this happens because the bull horsefly, whose habitat is the edge of the forest, pasture, coast of water bodies, is able to produce in one season offspring in large numbers.
Breeding bull flies
The female lays up to a thousand elongated grayish eggs at a time, attaching them to the leaves of plants. Prefers an insect to do this near ponds. Hatching, the larvae burrow into moist soil. There they lead a predatory lifestyle. After a while, the larvae pupate. During this period, they are very similar to butterfly pupae.
Before the important process of laying eggs, the female should be well supported by the blood of animals, birds or people. In some cases, when there are no warm-blooded mammals around, the insect attacks even the monitor lizards. And these reptiles are cold-blooded reptiles.
This fact once again confirms the opinion that this blood-sucking nest in vain is called bull flies. He or, more precisely, she does not adhere to a clearly limited framework when the question is about who it is worth attacking to get enough.
Why was gender refinement used in the previous phrase? Yes, because the bull male bullfly feeds on nectar and sugary secretions of plants and aphids. For this reason, it is not bloodsucking. Yes, and the female before fertilization also does not need blood.
Three to four days after laying, the female can repeat the bloodsucking procedure. After that, she is again able to lay a batch of eggs. This process can be repeated up to five times per season. As a result, the female horsefly will lay up to 3500 eggs!
Value in nature
Many people, especially rural people, who are harassed by these vicious blood-sucking flies and interfere with livestock breeding, have a question: why not bull calf at all? But it turns out that this is absolutely impossible. After all, this insect, like all others, is a component of natural communities. Erasing it from the face of the Earth, you can upset the established balance. This will definitely respond with a negative manifestation.
In fact, horseflies feed dozens of groups of animals: birds, fish, reptiles. No wonder many fishermen use this insect as bait. And quite successfully, by the way.
The corpses of insects, falling to the ground, fertilize it, which is also one of the reasons for the inexhaustibility of our soils.
Another question: how to reduce the damage caused by this vile? As it turned out, horseflies cannot tolerate the smell of wormwood. Therefore, it is recommended to hang bundles of this odorous grass on the door and window frames during the period of special activity of these insects (in June-July). It is unlikely that there will be horsefly that ventured to overcome such a barrier.
In cattle yards, in order to reduce the number of bloodsuckers, arrange special reservoirs for them, pouring a little fuel oil or kerosene there. Insects, trying to get drunk during a flight, cannot take off and fall into a puddle where they die.
People who are forced to do business in the garden or yard at noon, graze animals on pastures or perform work in the field, use chemical repellents as protection from bites. Thick fabric clothing also helps them. The face is protected with a hat with a net, which is usually used by beekeepers.
Interesting facts about bovine horsefly lifestyle
Adult insects of this species do not feed. Adults spend most of their time in flight, focusing on vision.
Female horseflies react to large objects that move. Therefore, they often choose cars or boats as their victim and begin to pursue them. The speed of a moving subject can reach 40 kilometers per hour. Moreover, horseflies will pursue a boat that sailed several hundred kilometers from the coast!
Experiments have proved that horseflies do not attack striped objects. Apparently, this is due to the structure of their visual organs. Especially the fact such as non-parallel stripes confuses them. Zebras, which have just such a color, practically do not suffer from the attack of horseflies.