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Although flies are most commonly attracted to open wounds and urine- or feces-soaked fur, some species (including the most common myiatic flies—the botfly, blowfly, and screwfly) can create an infestation even on unbroken skin. Non-myiatic flies (such as the common housefly) can be responsible for accidental myiasis.
Horse flies and deer flies [a] are true flies in the family Tabanidae in the insect order Diptera. The adults are often large and agile in flight. Only female horseflies bite land vertebrates, including humans, to obtain blood. They prefer to fly in sunlight, avoiding dark and shady areas, and are inactive at night.
Feeding by adult flies on the blood of their hosts exposes the hosts to pathogenic organisms that are infecting the fly, this can lead to acute disease of the host's blood and other organs. [7] [8] Feeding by adult flies using their sponging mouthparts can also expose the hosts to pathogenic organisms that have contaminated the mouthparts.
The drain flies which are commonly found in bathrooms, Clogmia albipunctata, are not known to carry any human diseases, but have been known to be an opportunistic agent of myiasis. However, the subfamily of Phlebotominae does feed on blood with the ability to transmit (tropical) diseases, and Sycorax silacea can transmit microfilaria. [11]
Lutzomyia longipalpis feeding on human blood. As sand fly females suck blood from vertebrates , including humans , they can transmit leishmaniasis , arboviruses and bartonellosis . [ 2 ] In the New World , leishmaniasis is spread by sand flies in the genus Lutzomyia , which commonly live in caves, where their main hosts are bats .
The flies are attracted to smoke from wood fires and they use visual cues and sensation of carbon dioxide plumes to find their preferred host, humans. [ 6 ] A study of Chrysops spp. biting habits showed that C. dimidiata and C. silacea take human blood meals approximately 90% of the time, with hippopotamus, wild ruminant, rodent, and lizard ...
The flies are pool feeders. Their saliva, which contains anticoagulants, a number of enzymes and histamine, is mixed with the blood, preventing clotting until it is ingested by the fly. These bites cause localized tissue damage, and if the number of feeding flies is sufficient, their feeding may produce a blood-loss anaemia.
The life of the parasite can be traced through the black fly and the human hosts in the following steps: [13] [14] A Simulium female black fly takes a blood meal on an infected human host and ingests microfilaria. The microfilaria enter the black fly's gut and thoracic flight muscles, progressing into the first larval stage (J1.).