Bug card No. 0530 of 1,500
Forest fly
Hippobosca equina
The forest fly is a flat, reddish brown fly with yellow spots. It lives on horses and cattle and drinks their blood. It has a funny way of moving: it scuttles sideways like a little crab.
Lives in
Europe and parts of Asia and Africa, often near horses and cattle
What does it eat?
It drinks the blood of horses and cattle, and sometimes deer, camels, rabbits and even birds.
How fast is it?
A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
Forest fly about 8 km/h (5 mph)
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
It keeps its wings all its life, so it can fly off its horse and come back.
2
It likes to sit and feed between the back legs of a horse.
3
The mother does not lay eggs. She gives birth to one big larva at a time.
4
The larva turns into a pupa within about an hour.
5
Its wings are about 6 to 8,5 millimetres long.
you asked
Most asked questions about Forest fly
?What does the forest fly eat?
Only blood, mostly from horses and cattle.
?Why does the forest fly walk sideways?
That is how it moves around in the fur of its host, scuttling sideways like a crab.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Hippobosca equina
- Group
- Flies and mosquitoes
- Family
- Hippoboscidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Diptera > Hippoboscidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia, Africa
- Also known as
- New Forest fly
Where the facts come from
- Hippobosca equina (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 [J Roháček] Oboňa J, Sychra O, Greš S, Heřman P, Manko P, Roháček J, Šestáková A, Šlapák J, Hromada M (2019) A revised annotated checklist of louse flies (Dipte. CC BY 4.0, 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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