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Feeding by adult flies may cause irritation through acute stress from painful bites, resulting in loss of grazing time and reduced gain in weight. [6] 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.
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 flies that feed on vertebrate blood have sharp stylets that pierce the skin, with some species having anticoagulant saliva that is regurgitated before absorbing the blood that flows; in this process, certain diseases can be transmitted. The bot flies (Oestridae) have evolved to parasitize mammals.
To obtain the blood, the females, but not the males, bite animals, including humans. The female needs about six days to fully digest her blood meal and after that, she needs to find another host. [5] The flies seem to be attracted to a potential victim by its movement, warmth, and surface texture, and by the carbon dioxide it breathes out. [33]
Smaller flies have an advantage in stressful environmental situations, due to larger dung flies needing more energy. [3] Additionally, low genetic differentiation exists between yellow dung fly populations, likely due to extensive gene flow, as S. stercoraria is able to travel great distances. [ 3 ]
The white-eye mutation leads to several disadvantages in flies, such as a reduced climbing ability, shortened life span, and lowered resistance to stress when compared to wild type flies. [74] Drosophila melanogaster has a series of mating behaviors that enable them to copulate within a given environment and therefore contribute to their fitness.
Notably, gravid flies are particularly attracted to sapromyophilous flowers that exude a carrion-like odor, such as the dead horse arum lily. These flowers are tricking the flies into pollinating them by mimicking the scent of a corpse, but the flies also frequently visit myophilous flowers such as the oxeye daisy , and are attracted to the ...
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]