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[25] [26] These flies have complex cutting mouthparts that make a superficial wound in skin. Blood flowing into the wound is sponged up by the labella organ of the mouthparts (see photograph of Tabanus mouthparts). The flies tend to take small meals from many hosts at short intervals, to avoid the defensive actions of their hosts.
Flies have a mobile head, with a pair of large compound eyes, and mouthparts designed for piercing and sucking (mosquitoes, black flies and robber flies), or for lapping and sucking in the other groups. Their wing arrangement gives them great manoeuvrability in flight, and claws and pads on their feet enable them to cling to smooth surfaces.
Some moths do not feed after emerging from the pupa, and have greatly reduced, vestigial mouthparts or none at all. All but a few adult Lepidoptera lack mandibles (the superfamily known as the mandibulate moths have fully developed mandibles as adults), but also have the remaining mouthparts in the form of an elongated sucking tube, the proboscis.
All meals must be a fluid in order for the flies to access the meal because Megaselia scalaris has sponging mouthparts. [11] This is a characteristic common to the family Phoridae. The sharp teeth possessed by adults are not used in retrieval of a food source, like a piercing mouthpart, but are instead used to aid digestion and breakdown of ...
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.
Within the Neuropterida, adults have chewing mouthparts, but the mandibles of male dobsonflies are non-functional in feeding. The larvae in many lineages are predatory, with mandibles modified with grooves along which digestive saliva flows, while the larvae of the family Sisyridae have the mouthparts developed into a sucking tube which they ...
The cage fungus, a brightly colored mushroom, smells like death and drips brown slime to attract flies, which helps the fungus spread. The cage fungus, a brightly colored mushroom, smells like ...
The primary function of the adult is reproduction; adults do not feed and have only vestigial mouthparts, while their digestive systems are filled with air. [13] Dolania americana has the shortest adult lifespan of any mayfly: the adult females of the species live for less than five minutes.