ScientificName: Musca Domestica

Description: Small, black bodies with two wings and big eyes.

Habitat/Food: House Flies lay their eggs in and around manure piles, garbage, and rotting flesh as a food source for their maggots. Their antennae help them smell and their feet have taste receptors on them, which helps them find and eat anything that humans eat.

Life Cycle: A female fly will lay 75 – 150 eggs per a batch and up to 3,000 eggs laid in a lifetime. The eggs then hatch into maggots with 24 hours. They can begin mating after 3 days and live for about 21 days. The temperature is the main variable for how fast flies mature. They like it best in warm, moist areas.

Organic Control: Keeping a clean house using fly traps and repellants will help keep most fly problems away. Horse manure is a favorite place for the house fly to lay its eggs.

Interesting Fact: After studying 300,000 flies, researchers Dr Yao and Dr Yuan of China concluded that your average house fly carries 2 million bacteria on its body. Flies also beat their wings over 200 times a second, which is 3 times faster than a humming bird.