Common House Fly (Musca domestica)

Insect; Adult: Gray with four dark stripes on the thorax and yellowish-light brown abdomen; 5-8 mm long, with female usually larger than male. Eggs are white, cylindrical, tapering at both ends. Larvae are yellowish-brown maggots (about 11 mm long). Pupae are reddish-brown and 4-7mm long. A common insect found almost all over the world; usually on and around filth, garbage and refuse and human habitation. Has a high breeding rate and liking for almost any kind of food material; its habit of regurgitating while feeding and particles of dirt etc. sticking to its body hairs makes it a very efficient carrier of disease-causing organisms.

Drain Fly or Moth Fly (Psychoda sp.)

Insect; Adult: small, dark, fuzzy, moth-like, about 2-3 mm long. Adults are weak fliers. Eggs are laid in filth or grease accumulating on sides of drains and pipes, larvae develop and feed on organic matter and microscopic plants that grow in the filth. Adults emerge after 1-2 weeks. Adults are often found clinging to walls of damp areas in bathrooms and kitchens. They are weak fliers, flying only a few feet at a time. They do not bite and are usually active at night. They cause annoyance and are perhaps the most common insect inhabitant of sewage treatment plants.

Fruit Fly or Vinegar Fly
(Drosophilla melangaster)

Insect; Adult, very small light yellow to brown colour, with large, red eyes. Up to 3 mm long, weak fliers. Eggs are laid on surface of rotting fruit. Larvae feed on yeast and fungi growing on the fruit and pupate before emerging as adults. Entire life cycle usually takes 18-20 days. It is generally found hovering in swarms around decaying vegetation and overripe fruit and near garbage bins in kitchens.

Flesh Fly (Sarcophagidae)

Insect; Adult: grey with three dark stripes on the thorax and checkerboard pattern on grey abdomen; 10-12 mm long, with females usually larger than males. Some species lay eggs while some give birth to live young on the surface of food such as carrion, dung or decaying material and even open wounds on animals. Larvae are whitish maggots, which feed for 5-7 days before burrowing into the soil to pupate. Can carry leprosy bacilli and transmit intestinal pseudomyiasis to people who eat meat containing the larvae. When maggots develop in open wounds in animals, they can cause myiasis and blood poisoning or asymptomatic leprosy infections. Maggots collected from human corpses have been used as a tool in forensic entomology investigations to calculate the approximate date of death (since the flesh fly’s life cycle is well documented and predictable) and this evidence has often helped in solving murder cases.