Adult horse-flies feed on nectar and plant exudates; the males have weak mouthparts and only the females bite animals to obtain enough protein from blood to produce eggs. The mouthparts of females are formed into a stout stabbing organ with two pairs of sharp cutting blades, and a spongelike part used to lap up the blood that flows from the wound. The larvae have yellow or black eyes with dark, dark, often with a metallic sheen.
About Horse-fly in brief
Horse-flies or horseflies are true flies in the family Tabanidae in the insect order Diptera. Adult horse-flies feed on nectar and plant exudates; the males have weak mouthparts and only the females bite animals to obtain enough protein from blood to produce eggs. The mouthparts of females are formed into a stout stabbing organ with two pairs of sharp cutting blades, and a spongelike part used to lap up the blood that flows from the wound. Horse-flies have appeared in literature since Aeschylus in Ancient Greece mentioned them driving people to madness through their persistent pursuit. In North America they are known as ‘horse flies’ or ‘breeze-flies’ and in Australia and the UK ‘March flies’ are used to refer to non-bloodsucking Bibionidae. Some species in the subfamily Pangoniina have an exceptionally long proboscis and are also known as pseudopods, or pseudopod flies. They have a body length between 5 and 25 mm with the largest wingspan of 60 mm. The larvae are predaceous and grow in semiaquatic habitats. In females, the eyes are widely separated but in males, they are almost touching; they are often patterned and brightly coloured in life but appear dull in preserved specimens. The terminal segment of the antennae is pointed and is annulated, appearing to be made up of several tapering rings. Both head and thorax are clad in short hairs, but no bristles are on the body.
The membranous forewings are clear, uniformly shaded grey or brown, or patterned in some species; they have a basal lobe that covers the modified knob-like hindwings or halteres. The tips of the legs have two lobes on the sides and a central lobe or empodium in addition to two claws that enable them to grip surfaces. The larva has a yellow to black colour and is up to 10 to 10mm long, with dark patches and dark patches on the abdomens. The larvae have yellow or black eyes with dark, dark, often with a metallic sheen with dark or dark, brown or dark eyes with a sheen of small tubercles around the heads and tubercles. They are known to carry equine infectious anaemia virus, some trypanosomes, the filarial worm Loa loa, anthrax among cattle and sheep, and tularemia. They can reduce growth rates in cattle and lower the milk output of cows if suitable shelters are not provided. The most common name is ‘cleg’ which comes from Old Norse and may have originated from the Vikings. Other names such as’stouts’ refer to the wide bodies of the insects and ‘dun’ refers to their sombre colouring. The species recognition is based on details of head structures, the wing venation and the body patterning; minute variations of surface structure cause subtle alterations of the overlying hairs which alters the appearance.
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This page is based on the article Horse-fly published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 02, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
