 | Flies of North America - Order Diptera Insect order Diptera (true flies, two-winged flies). Flies are prevalent in virtually all habitats, with over 16,000 species in North America. Live adult flies photographed in the wild at North American locations. Insects & Spiders | Flies Index | Family Tachinidae | Family Syrphidae | Bombyliidae | Robber Flies |
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Flies are prevalent in virtually all habitats, with over 16,000 species in North America. Flies can be distinguished from all other insects in that they only have one pair of normal wings. The other pair has evolved into small ball-like structures called halteres, thought to be used as stabilizing organs during flight. Most flies have compound eyes and mouthparts adapted for piercing, lapping or sucking fluids. Flies are some of the most deadly carriers of disease; millions still die from mosquito-carried malaria every year; countless thousands fall victim to yellow fever, typhoid and dysentery, all caused by fly-born bacteria. On the other hand, flies are important pollinators, scavengers, and parasites of other harmful insects. |
Family Asilidae - Robber Flies comprise over 7,000 species world- wide; nearly 1,000 in North America. All robber flies have stout, spiny legs, a dense moustache of bristles on the face (mystax), and 3 simple eyes (ocelli) in a characteristic depression between their two large compound eyes. The mystax helps protect the head and face when the fly encounters struggling prey. The antennae are short, 3-segmented, sometimes with a bristle-like structure called an arista. The short, strong proboscis is used to stab and inject victims with saliva containing neurotoxic and proteolytic enzymes which paralyze the unfortunate and digest the insides; the fly then sucks the liquefied meal much like we vacuum up an ice cream soda through a straw. Many species have long, tapering abdomens, sometimes with a sword-like ovipositor. Others are fat-bodied bumble bee mimics. Robber flies are among the largest of the predatory flies; they can not only look like bumble bees, they can sound like them too! |  Laphria thoracica |
 Bombylius major | Family Bombyliidae - Bee Flies make up one of the largest families, with over 5,000 species described worldwide. Their high diversity may be due to the parasitoid habit of the majority of their larvae. Adults feed on nectar and pollen, and are believed to be important pollinators of many plants, although few species have been studied in detail. Bee flies occur on all continents except Antarctica. I most often see bee flies hovering around flowers, or if resting, usually on bare soil. They are extremely wary and difficult to approach. No doubt their large compound eyes give them good vision, plus they have that air-motion sensing mechanism that helps the ordinary house fly avoid the swatter. Adult bee flies drink nectar, but the larvae are parasites of beetle larvae as well as the brood of solitary wasps and bees, the hole or burrow-nesting insects. |
Family Calliphoridae - Blow, Bottle, and Screwworm Flies Most blow flies lay their eggs almost exclusively in dead or rotting flesh. A few species' larvae are parasitic on bird nestlings, some have larvae that live as internal parasites of mammals [1]. They are usually the first insects to arrive at a fresh carcass, sometimes within minutes of death; they are attracted by the organic odors of decomposition. Eggs are laid around natural body orifices or open wounds, and the larvae molt and pupate at predictable rates for any given ambient temperature and humidity; it is for these reasons the blowflies are so important in forensic pathology. Maggots (larvae) and pupariums (the hollow cases left behind after the adult fly emerges) collected from a body can be used to determine, sometimes very accurately, the time of death. Some species in the family are serious pests of livestock, especially in the tropics. They cause myiasis, a condition in which their larvae inhabit the skin or connective tissue of large mammal hosts. Larvae of some bot flies (Oestridae), and flesh flies (Sarcophagidae) also use this parasitic stage. |  |
 Aedes taeniorhynchus | Family Culicidae - Mosquitoes: A Rogue's Gallery Historically, before mosquito transmitted diseases were brought under control, they caused tens of thousands of deaths in these countries and hundreds of thousands of infections.[16] Mosquitoes were shown to be the method by which yellow fever and malaria were transmitted from person to person by Walter Reed, William C. Gorgas and associates in the U.S. Army Medical Corps first in Cuba and then around the Panama Canal in the early 1900s. Since then other diseases have been shown to be transmitted the same way. |
Crane Flies - Infraorder Tipulomorpha Adults have a relatively short lifespan of 10-15 days, although the entire brood may last a month or more. The larvae are found in a wide variety of habitats, varying from strictly aquatic to terrestrial [1]. There are ~1500 species of crane fly in North America, and over 15,000 worldwide. Most species pictured here are members of Family Tipulidae, often referred to as "large" crane flies, with 4,269 recognized species [2]. |  Tipula bicornis |
 Spilomyia longicornis | Family Syrphidae are often called syrphids, hover flies, flowers flies or sweat bees. Despite their sometimes very convincing mimickry of the bees and wasps, these gentle creatures do not bite or sting. Adults feed on pollen and nectar, larvae eat plant materials or are predators on other insects, most notably aphids. As such, Syrphid flies are routinely used as a biological control agents in many agricultural crops. In the lettuce fields of California's vegetable-producing regions, the fly's larvae are effective in controlling lettuce aphid. It is primarily the Syrphidae that enable organic romaine growers on California's central coast to produce harvestable crops. Syrphidae larvae are, in turn, parasitized by wasps in the Hymenoptera families Ichneumonidae, Braconidae and Pteromalidae [3]. |
Family Tachinidae is the second-largest family of Diptera, with over 10,000 species worldwide. Adult tachinid flies are known for their bristly facies. Archytas exhibits prototypical tachinid features, including a large, metallic-colored abdomen covered with bristles. Many other tachinids, however, are sparsely bristled and exhibit very pale coloration. All Tachinids share the parasitoid habit, and almost all of them are endoparasites of other insects; in spite of their varied appearance all species of Tachinidae are alike in this characteristic [4]. Insects most commonly parasitized by the tachinids are the larvae of the Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) and the adults and larval form of the beetles. Other tachinids attack true bugs of the Hemiptera (Heteroptera), larvae of Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, ants, sawflies), and adults of Orthoptera (grasshoppers, katydids, crickets and their kin). |  Adejeania vexatrix |
 Deer Fly Chrysops calvus | Family Tabanidae - Horse and Deer Flies |
 Soldier Fly Family Stratiomyidae |  Stilt-legged Fly Family Micropezidae |  Flesh Fly Family Sarcophagidae |  Flesh Fly Sarcophaga sp. |
 Fruit Fly |  Long Legged Fly |  Soldier Fly |  Family Dolichopodidae |
References
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