Toad fly
The toad fly is a blow fly with a shiny metallic green body, big brown eyes and see-through wings. It looks a lot like the green flies you see in summer. What makes it special is that its maggots grow up living on toads.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
The mother fly lays her eggs on a toad, close to its nose.
It mostly picks the common toad, and it likes big, weak or hurt toads best.
In one study in the Netherlands, about 8 out of every 100 toads had toad fly maggots.
The maggots only grow well when it is not too cold and not too hot, between about 14 and 29 degrees.
When the maggots are fully grown, they crawl into the soil to turn into flies.
Most asked questions about Toad fly
?Is the toad fly dangerous to people?
No. It only lays its eggs on toads and sometimes frogs, not on people or pets.
?What does the toad fly eat?
The grown-up flies visit flowers for nectar and pollen. Their maggots feed on toads.
?What does a toad fly look like?
It is a shiny green fly with big brown eyes, very like other green blow flies.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Lucilia bufonivora
- Group
- Flies and mosquitoes
- Family
- Calliphoridae
- Classification
- Insecta > Diptera > Calliphoridae
- Lives on
- Europe
- Also known as
- Toadfly
Where the facts come from
- Lucilia bufonivora (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 James K. Lindsey. 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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