Field Guide to Venomous and Medically Important Invertebrates ...

Filth flies (Families Muscidae, Calliphoridae, and Sarcophagidae)
Filth flies breed in and feed on feces, corpses and other carrion, and garbage. Because of these
particular feeding habitats, filth flies can be responsible for mechanically transmitting a wide
variety of gastrointestinal and other parasitic diseases to humans through contact with food and
water sources. Filth flies are incredibly productive and a single food source can yield thousands
of flies in a single week. The presence of large numbers of filth flies in an area of operations can
be annoying, and this may cause psychological distress among some military members.
The primary filth fly groups of interest to military personnel are the muscid flies. Members of
the Musca sorbens complex (Musca biseta; Musca sorbens, dog dung fly or bazaar fly; Musca
vetustissima, Australian bush fly) are major nuisance flies because of their tendency to feed at
the mouths, eyes and wounds of people. Musca sorbens also has been strongly implicated as a
primary mechanical vector of traucoma (Chlamydia trachomatis) that can cause blindness in
humans. Members of this group can be distinguished from the house fly in that they have two
dark, broad longitudinal stripes on the thorax rather than four narrow stripes on the house fly
thorax. Bottle and blow flies (Calliphoridae, ex., Cynomopsis spp, Calliphora spp., Phaenicia
spp., Lucilia, Phormia regina), flesh flies (Sarcophagidae, Sarcophaga spp.) are often brightly
metallic colored or shiny in appearance. The Old World latrine fly, Chrysomya megacephala, is
a common pest in the Indo-Australian area, but it also has been introduced into the Afrotropical
and Neotropical Regions.
Figure 206. House fly (Musca domestica). Photo: J. Kalisch.