Say what?

The house-fly is a big nuisance and annoys me to no end. As a kid I was quite mean to many a fly and now thy are getting back at me. When they fuss around windows, I would trap them in a transparent cup and observe its reaction. And of course, I would let them go. But it was an interesting hobby because it as quite challenging to trap these in a cup. I had the fly-catching wisdom passed down by my brother who trained me about the flight-pattern of flies. I digress. But as I out-grew my childishness, the most I ever do is to shoo away the fly even if one sits on me.

Until recently, I thought they were annoying because they make that humming noise as they fly, and sit on you and move around etc, but I found there are some flies that bite. I didn't believe it when my husband said that. I ridiculed him, but one just bit me this morning. And they bite quite well. It was weird to get a fly-bite and also painful. The annoyance of a house-fly combined with the biting power of a mosquito. Thats a strange hybrid, I thought. Thankfully, they are less swift (like mosquitoes) and bulkier than the regular house-fly, so revenge is much easier. I learnt while browsing for biting-fly related topics that these biting flies are not house flies, rather these are stable flies, deer flies, horse flies etc. The key distinquishing feature is the proboscis of the house-fly, basically the house-fly does not have biting equipment.

I conclude that as annoying as they are, I prefer house-flies to biting stable flies.