7 Common Types of Flies in North America & The Threats They Pose

    Types of flies

    This tiny pest though smallest in size is the quite biggest one to handle. When your home is filled with flies, it poses a serious threat to the health of your loved ones especially if you have kids at home. These flies are indeed the most common pest around the world with more than 120,000 types of flies sprawling around the world freely. Especially if talk about North America alone, there are more than 18,000 types of these nasty critters found in this region.

    Although the life span of life is too short, still in this short life span they make your life hell as they dart around the room freely, knock hard at your laptop screen, buzz near your ears and walk all over your food without taking any warning seriously from your side. Experience it yourself, shoo them away once, and right after a minute or two, they will be buzzing on the spot again. It is their persistence nagging that flies are considered the most annoying pests.

    The word annoying is not enough, these are highly dangerous for human health too as they have the habit of sitting anywhere, carrying the germs from dirty spots, and then passing those germs to your food. After engulfing that dirty food, you can food poisoning and so many other diseases. If you are wondering what are the different fly types found in North America, this article is for you. Just give this article a detailed read, know about the hazards they spread, and save yourself from their deadly effects.

    Different Types of Flies

    1. House Flies

    These are highly common. Among the different flies, these are instantly noticeable because of their grayish color. House flies are just not common in North America, these are the main source of spreading germs like E.Coli, Staphylococcus, and Salmonella all around the world. Even if you have just read the basics of general science in your high school, you would have a good idea that these germs are highly susceptible to spreading typhoid fever, Cholera, Polio, Tuberculosis, Hepatitis, and so many other infectious diseases. House flies are not going to bite you, these are just the carriers of germs, and try to ingest your food by vomiting on it which makes it easy for them to break the food in small particles. To avoid this problem, you should first cover all the eatables in your kitchen, dining table, and refrigerator. The best solution is the complete elimination of this dirtiest fly from your home by destroying their breeding grounds.

    1. Fruit Fly

    This is another common type of fly insect that is found in most of the households in the United States. They can rapidly reproduce that you cannot get rid of the entire population of fruit flies so easily. If we talk about the life span of this fly, it usually lasts from 25 to 30 days depending on the conditions of your surroundings. These are 3 to 4 mm long in size, and the color of the fly is brown and tan, their eyes are darker, and legs are quite small. These flies feed themselves on the rotting food, so if you want to keep them away from your home, just get rid of every rotten food item. They also like to sit on liquid food, like beer, liquor, and juices. For breeding, they try to find a dark corner, and when they find the right habitat, these are prone to lay more than 500 eggs at one time. Just like house flies, fruit flies are also capable of contaminating food.

    1. Blow Fly

    These flies are unique in their appearance as they exhibit a cool metallic blue or green color. A bit larger than the house flies, blow flies are quite abundant in all areas of North America, particularly in the Southwest. They try to find a damp environment to breed and grow their population. For feeding, blowflies depend upon decaying meat. Where there is organic matter, you will find a blowfly feeding on it.

    1. Horse Fly

    This is another notorious pest that just not only creates a nuisance but poses a serious threat for horses and other mammals. You will usually find these flies in damp and rural areas. There are multiple species of horse flies, and you can recognize them easily because of their light-colored wings and large eyes. Their fast speed is another indicator that you are looking at a horse feel as they can fly for more than 30 miles in one go. However, these flies do not act as a vector of disease.

    1. Phorid Fly

    If a fly runs away from you instead of acting stubbornly, this is a phorid fly. It is one of those types of flies that is tiny in size and makes its home near drains and trash cans. Feeding on the dead animals and rotting vegetation, it is one of those flies that you will surely in areas where some kind of food is rotting.

    1. Gnat

    These fly types are found throughout North America and it is most likely to bite you especially if you see it hovering around you in the evening. In the morning, they look for their mates and need blood to give eggs. You will notice most of the gnats give eggs in standing water. If directly come in contact with you, you can catch conjunctivitis.

    1. Drain Fly

    The hair covering is the specific feature of this fly. It is more like a gnat and leaves a powdery smudge wherever it sits. They also try to find a damp environment in a damp environment like drains and sewers. You will find these types of flies mostly hovering around your sinks in the evening.

    Bottom Line!

    Act swiftly and remove their breeding ground as soon as you notice all these types of flies in your home.

     

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