Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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 females bite land vertebrates, including humans, to obtain blood. They prefer to fly in sunlight, avoiding dark and shady areas, and are inactive at night.
Males of these horse flies feed on plant juices, while female are bloodsuckers, [7] feeding mainly on mammalian blood, as they require a blood meal before they are able to reproduce. They may be very annoying for cattle, but usually they do not bite people.
These horse flies can be encountered during the daylight hours from late May through late October. [5] The males are harmless and feed on nectar, [7] while the females feed on mammal blood (hematophagy) (hence the Latin name Haematopota pluvialis, literally meaning 'blooddrinker of the rains'), mainly cattle and horses, needing blood for developing eggs.
On the other end of the spectrum, horse flies and deer flies use "blade-like" mouthparts to slash the skin before eating the spilling blood, which causes large, painful bites, Frye says. A fly ...
Black flies are very small, just a bit bigger than gnats, and tend to gather in swarms. Stable flies look a lot like a typical house fly, except they have a protruding mouthpart to feed on (mostly ...
From ticks to spiders to bed bugs, here’s what the most common bug bites look like in photos, the symptoms to know, and whether or not they can be dangerous.
The thorax is covered with long hairs that give it a creamy white color, while the abdomen is completely black. [4] Much like other horse fly species, the Tabanus punctifer female requires a blood meal for the development of their eggs. [5] Females will bite horses, livestock, and humans, making them vectors of disease for pathogens and ...
Osca lata, the coliguacho or black horse fly, is a large horse fly whose range includes southern Chile and southern Argentina. [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] The fly has a striking reddish-orange coloration on the side of its thorax and abdomen .