Australian sheep blowfly
The Australian sheep blowfly is a shiny green fly with a coppery shine and reddish eyes. It is a big worry for sheep farmers. The mother lays her eggs in dirty or hurt sheep wool, and the maggots can make the sheep very sick.
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Fun facts
Because of its shiny bronze colour, flies like it are called bronze bottle flies.
It can fly up to 16 kilometres looking for food.
Farmers call it fly strike when the maggots attack a sheep. It is a big problem for sheep farms.
From egg to grown-up fly takes about 11 to 21 days, faster when it is warm.
It likes warm, calm days and stays away when it is windy.
Most asked questions about Australian sheep blowfly
?Why is the Australian sheep blowfly a problem?
It lays eggs in the wool of sheep, and the maggots hurt the sheep. Farmers call this fly strike.
?How big is the Australian sheep blowfly?
It is about 4.5 to 10 millimetres long.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Lucilia cuprina
- Group
- Flies and mosquitoes
- Family
- Calliphoridae
- Classification
- Insecta > Diptera > Calliphoridae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania, Africa, North America
Where the facts come from
- Lucilia cuprina (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Caroline Harding (MAF Plant Health & Environment Laboratory). CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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