Types Of Flies
A Quick Resource List of The Different Types of Flies
Unfortunately, there are a great many types of flies. They buzz around our heads, oblivious to our swats that almost never come anywhere near them. But learning about the different types of flies will help you know whether they are disease-carriers, and how you can eliminate them.
Flies, by definition, whether they be house flies or horse flies or deer flies, have two wings. There are over 150,000 types of flies, and to describe each and every sub-species would take the space of an encyclopedia. But we will cover some of them here.
Small-headed flies are one of the types of flies we might call “friendly flies”. They are flower feeders, and they have an extended proboscis for drawing nectar from the flowers they frequent.
Bee flies get their name because they resemble bees. In fact, they are not related to them. Many of this species are also characterized by the extended proboscis that is used for nectaring on flowers.
The bottle fly is a species of Blow Fly. They are not a biting fly; they usually feed on dead animals. They can be seen in metallic black, copper, green and blue. They are also one of the types of flies we sometimes call “friendly flies”.
Flesh flies are one of the types of flies in the Sarcophagidae family. The name is important because it describes how they feed, on animal flesh. These are fairly common flies, with over three hundred species in the United States. They have a checkered body, black stripes on the thorax, and red eyes.
Longlegged flies are small flies, measuring about half the size of the house fly. They have a body of metallic color on long legs. You can spot longlegged flies on leaves, near water.
Robber Flies boast a thousand species in North America. They are aggressive, large flies that feed on other insects like grasshoppers. They are not aggressive towards humans, but their physical appearance allows them to fly into bee swarms without betraying their predatory intentions.
Syrphid Flies are a family of flies that are also called flower flies and hover flies. They resemble bees, and they can hover like hummingbirds, and feed on nectar from flowers. They are one of just a few types of flies called flower flies, since nectar is their food source. The drone fly resembles a bee, but it isn't a bee – it does not sting, and it has two wings.
Soldier flies have variations in colors, and they sometimes have multi-colored abdomens or stripes. Many soldier flies resemble wasps or bees. They feed on manure, and they are not normally considered pests to humans.
The tachinid fly has over a thousand species in the United States. They usually have black, dark gray or metallic colored abdomens.
There are countless other types of flies, but these are some of the more common in North America.