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Stable-flies and horn-flies (bloodsucking Muscidae)

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Medical Insects and Arachnids

Abstract

The Muscidae occur worldwide and include nearly 4000 species. The adults of most of them cannot bite and usually depend for their nutrition on a diet other than blood, but some among this huge number — about 50 species comprising the subfamily Stomoxyinae — are unusual muscids because they are able to bite with a specially adapted proboscis and feed by directly gorging on the blood of large mammals (usually ruminants). On account of this habit, which is common to both sexes of the flies, the stomoxyines can be annoying to humans, major irritant pests of cattle, and (rarely) transmitters of certain parasites and pathogens. They include the stable-fly (Stomoxys calcitrans) and the horn-flies (Haematobia species), and it is with these that this chapter is mainly concerned. Also covered, however, is Musca crassirostris (the Indian cattle-fly), as despite belonging to the (normally) non-biting Muscinae this species is able to bite a vertebrate host and suck its blood in a direct manner like that of a stomoxyine; the fly also resembles the Stomoxyinae in developing through the larval stages in the dung of cattle.

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Authors
  1. R. W. Crosskey
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  1. Department of Entomology, The Natural History Museum (British Museum (Natural History)), Cromwell Road, SW7 5BD, London, UK

    Richard P. Lane  & Roger W. Crosskey  & 

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Crosskey, R.W. (1993). Stable-flies and horn-flies (bloodsucking Muscidae). In: Lane, R.P., Crosskey, R.W. (eds) Medical Insects and Arachnids. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-1554-4_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-1554-4_10

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-4679-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-011-1554-4

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