Muska domestica :

The Housefly

 

SYSTEMITIC POSITION

 

Phylum : Arthropoda

Subphylum : Mandibulata

Class : Insecta

Subclass : Pterygota

Division : Endopterygota

Order : Diptera

Family : Muscidae

Genus : Musca

Species : domestica

 

HABIT AND HABITAT

 

 The common housefly, Musca domestica is of world- wide distribution, abundantly found around human habitation and filthy and dirty place to an active insect flying freely from one place to another and feeding upon human debris and other decaying organic matter. It is a dangerous house pest as it serves as a carrier of many disease-producing organisms on its body surface or hairs. The fly is diurnal as it shows much activity during daytime and in sunlight. It neither bites nor stings but its mere presence becomes intolerable to a conscious person, fearful of invisible enemies adhering to it.

                                                With the help of its sponging type of mouthparts, the fly licks up liquid food. It feeds very frequently, approximately every 10 or 15 minutes. It is very sensitive and leaves the resting or feeding spot on a mere sight or sound of any object approaching it. It is also in the habit of faecal matter contains several microorganisms. Its development undergoes complete metamorphosis involving the egg, larva, pupa and adult stages.

 

ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE OF HOUSEFLY

 

Houseflies are associated with filth of all kinds. At one time they were allowed to walk freely over the human food, as they were considered to be very useful scavengers, feeding on all kinds of all of debris and domestic refuge. But in the light of modern scientific knowledge, people have been so thoroughly aroused to the menace of these dangerous insects that they are no longer tolerated.

1.     Conveyance of diseases. Housefly is the most important single agent in spreading disease. It is, therefore, one of the deadliest enemies of humanity. It contaminates our food owing to its insanitary habits. On one hand it feed on human excrement, sputum, exudates of sores, diseased bodies, manures etc., and on human food on the other hand. Rough and hairy surface of its body and legs are well adapted for carrying disease- causing bacteria and protozoans from refuge to articles of food and drink. It is believed to disseminate the agents of a number of fatal diseases such as typhoid fever, dysentery, cholera, yaws, tuberculosis, leprosy, trachoma, gonorrhoea, anthrax and other eggs and larvae of several parasitic worms, like Taenia solium and Ascaris lumbricoides, may also be transmitted by housefly. It also serves as an intermediate host of poultry tapeworm and may transfer roundworm from one horse to the other from their sores, lips and eyes. Conveyance of disease germs may be brought about in the following two ways :

a.     External transference. When the fly sits on debris, refuge or excreta, the disease germs become entagled with the numerous hairs covering its body, wings, legs and mouthparts. These germs are then dropped in or rubbed with the human food, or are scrapped or washed off as they walk over sugar or drown in tea or milk.

b.     Internal transference. The disease germs are ingested with food and they live and multiply in the crop of fly. They are transferred to human food either with faecal spots or with regurgitated food.

2.     Myiasis in man. Invasion of a part of body of man or other animals by the eggs or larvae of flies is called myiasis. M. domestica is known to oviposit or larviposit on open wounds where the maggots hatch out. Maggots have been isolated from inflamed leg of a man of 80 suffering from varicose veins. Sometimes eggs are laid in the nasal passages, mouth, anus, vagina and orbit of eye, causing serious disorders. Eggs and larvae are very often ingested with contaminated food, causing intestinal myiasis. This causes intestinal disorder.

3.     Diseases spread by housefly. The following disease are spread by housefly : Anthrax, Leprosy, Typhoid, Gangrene, Trachoma, Cholera, Diarrhoea, Plague, Dysentry, Tuberculosis and Gonorrhoea etc.



source : modern textbook of zoology INVERTEBRATES 

by : - R.L. Kotpal

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