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House flies (Musca domestica)

May contain: animal, fly, insect, and invertebrate

House flies (Musca domestica) live in close association with humans and domestic animals. It is a major fly pest in California especially in agricultural areas. Adults are dull gray, with four stripes on their thorax, and grow to about ¼-inch long. Adults are attracted to food, filth, and waste materials where they feed and deposit their eggs. Adult flies may be seen resting on overhead surfaces inside houses, barns and stables, and outside on undersurfaces of roof overhangs, fences, in weeds, shrubs, and trees. These resting places are always close to food, such as manure, wet feed, broken eggs, decomposed plant material, including, grass clippings, vegetable and fruit wastes. The life cycle from egg to adult is seven to ten days. Adults live two to four weeks in midsummer and up to ten weeks in cooler weather.

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