Despite a horsey childhood, I really don't know what a horse fly looks like. However, there have been some odd looking flies around my stores area recently: even odder is fact that they seem to prefer alighting onto the sides of my ISO containers head-down AND a number have seemed to be intent on perching on my bare arms. Thinking about, I wonder whether these are horse flies: web searches proffer a whole load of different looking horse flies so that hasn't helped me although there has been some with similar looks to my mystery fly.
Looking into the horse fly life-cycle I found this ... "The larvae, which are scattered in the soil, cannot be eradicated. Insecticides cannot effectively control the adult flies, flying around, either. Adult horse flies can be trapped in traps, which consist of a rather large, dark object, which can be seen and is heated by the sun. Carbon dioxide (from dry ice) may increase the attractiveness of the trap. The horse-flies that are attracted, are trapped in a trap or in an adhesive that is placed in the trap. If strategically positioned, the trap can help the problem for grazing cattle. As mentioned, horse flies which have strayed indoors – do not bite, but can be controlled with a fly spray with pyrethrin, if you do not just let them out of the windows."
Umm - not sure I'm any better informed !!
As a starter, can anyone offer a reliable image of a Horse Fly in the UK ?
[Typeface AND font size issues again in the above - can't be bothered to correct.]
Topic: Horse flies (Read 6509 times)
