Carrot fly
The carrot fly is a small fly that gardeners know very well. Its little maggots dig into carrots and leave rusty brown tunnels in them. It finds carrots by sniffing out their smell.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
Its maggots have no legs and grow up to 1 centimetre long.
The girl flies fly very low, so a fence about 60 centimetres high around the carrots keeps them out.
Planting onions, chives or garlic next to carrots hides the carrot smell and confuses the fly.
When the maggots are at work, the carrot leaves turn rusty red and droop.
Most asked questions about Carrot fly
?How do you stop carrot flies?
Put a low fence or fine net around your carrots, or plant smelly onions and garlic next to them.
?What does the carrot fly eat?
Its maggots eat carrots, and also parsnips, parsley and celery.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Chamaepsila rosae
- Named by
- Fabricius, 1794
- Group
- Flies and mosquitoes
- Family
- Psilidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Diptera > Psilidae
- Lives on
- Europe, North America
- Also known as
- Carrot root fly
Where the facts come from
- Carrot fly (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 Rasbak. 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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