# Talk:Housefly

This statement "Houseflies have been used in the laboratory in research into ageing and sex determination." is not correct. This research was done with Drosophila melanogaster not Musca domestica. See  AND Theflyelectric (talk) 20:26, 8 January 2018 (UTC)Theflyelectric

It is correct. You are right that fruit flies have been important model organisms, but if you read the cited sources for the housefly (see the Science section) you'll see it has played its part too. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:59, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

On 24 September 2018, a post on [https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/9id4u7/til_that_the_japanese_used_houseflies_coated_in_a/ Reddit produced a spike in traffic of nearly 135000 views. The average in the period per day is about 2000. Shyamal (talk) 04:08, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

"Flies process visual information around seven times more quickly than humans, enabling them to identify and avoid attempts to catch or swat them, since they effectively see the human's movements in slow motion with their higher flicker fusion rate."
This doesn't really make sense. Our speed of movement isn't limited by our speed of vision.
BioImages2000 (talk) 11:45, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

I have looked at the sources and some related sites - flicker fusion rate is indeed used as a proxy for the the rapidity with which light is detected. Of course evasion involves - detection, nerve signal transfers, and muscle movement - all of which contribute to reaction speed so it is unclear what you are pointing too - the human (in)ability to swat flies or the flies' ability to evade? The text refers to the latter. Shyamal (talk) 04:19, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

The header "distribution" has no information under it. It should either be removed, or the section should have some information about distribution added. NicoleMerie (talk) 03:57, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

That section was lost after some vandalism earlier this year and I have replaced it. Thank you. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 07:19, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

I don’t know how long an average housefly pupa is but it’s got to be more than 1.2 mm. CrinklyCrunk (talk) 23:19, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

It is 8 mm as given in the lead. Not sure if there was some vandalism - my "who wrote that" plugin is currently not working quite right. Shyamal (talk) 01:58, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

"After two to five days of development, these metamorphose into reddish-brown pupae..."
"Larval development takes from two weeks, under optimal conditions, to 30 days or more in cooler conditions." 2A02:AA1:116A:82BD:89E8:DD03:5FE9:7140 (talk) 21:49, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

I was planning on adding the lifespan of flies based on information provided by pest control companies such as Orkin among others CohenJBaker (talk) 13:33, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ObserveOwl (talk) 13:56, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

"Head of a female housefly with two large compound eyes and three ocelli" is the head of a Fannia species (Diptera: Fanniidae), not Musca domestica. Please remove.
I did check if WikiMedia has a decent picture of a female Musca domestica head but there were none. In general, the fly pictures in WikiMedia are -- to put it mildly -- not perfectly identified. As a guesstimate, I would say at least a third are definitely wrong and a fair chunk of the rest is unidentifiable at the claimed level.
Still better than the commercial photo libraries tho: I did once do a survey of some stock image company offers and for the housefly, they were over 90% wrong at a family level. For Drosophilas fruit flies, the error rate was 'only' 85%, but I did accept pictures of fruit and flies as "fruit flies" :)
Some rejected candidates:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Mosca_com%C3%BAn_%28Musca_domestica%29%2C_M%C3%BAnich%2C_Alemania%2C_2020-06-24%2C_DD_01-31_FS.jpg *= Probably a Helina (Muscidae)*
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mosca_com%C3%BAn_(Musca_domestica),_M%C3%BAnich,_Alemania,_2020-06-24,_DD_61-75_FS.jpg *= Probably a Helina (Muscidae)*

 Done Day Creature (talk) 22:32, 9 November 2025 (UTC)