Stable Fly
(Stomoxys spp.)
Appearance
Stable flies are often mistaken for House flies. However, Stable flies have piercing-sucking mouthparts and House flies have a sponging type. Stable flies are brownish-gray in color and the abdomen has a checkered appearance.
Size
Approximately ¼ inch long.
Behavior
The Stable fly is a blood-sucking fly which is of considerable importance to people, pets, livestock, and the tourist industry in Florida. Stable flies primarily attack animals for a blood meal, but in the absence of an animal host will also bite man.
Stable flies breed in soggy hay, grasses, piles of moist fermenting weed, grass cuttings, peanut litter, seaweed deposits along beaches, in soiled straw bedding, and sometimes in hay ring feeding sites. The female, when depositing eggs will often crawl into loose material. Each female fly may lay 500 to 600 eggs in 4 separate batches. Eggs are small and white. Eggs hatch in 2 to 5 days into larvae which feed and mature in 14 to 26 days. Larvae are typical maggots and transform to small reddish-brown capsules (pupae) from which the adult flies emerge. The average life cycle is 28 days.
Habitat
Certain regions of the United States have considerable problems with large numbers of stable flies attacking man. The coastal part of New Jersey, shores of Lake Superior and Michigan, and West Florida are areas that historically have had severe stable fly problems. Although these areas have the most severe stable fly problems, the fly is numerous throughout Florida.
Interesting
It takes a Stable fly about 2 to 5 minutes to feed to engorgement.
Control
Do you live in Florida and think that this pest may be invading your home? Hulett Environmental Services offers specialty pest control treatments designed to control and eliminate this pest!
