Talk:Housefly

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[edit] Need to correct common name usage of house fly...

First off I want to say that just because someone can find a resource that uses, for example, dragon fly instead of dragonfly or housefly instead of house fly doesn't mean that the incorrect uses (dragon fly and housefly) are somehow valid.

I would change every page, if I could do it on my own. I need help from all of the publishers to correct this problem and prevent future mistakes.

The incorrect spellings can stay as redirect pages. This way, if a novice searchs for "bot-fly or botfly" then they won't get a search error page. Only the correct version should be used, period.

Please read for back ground information on this topic: Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions

Common Name Status Table
Page Status Comment
bee fly correct bee fly - family Bombyliidae
black fly correct black fly - family Simuliidae
blow fly wrong blow-fly - family Calliphoridae
bot fly wrong botfly - family Oestridae
bottle fly not sure no page - family Calliphoridae - can use the blow fly page
cactus fly N/A no page - family Neriidae
crane fly correct crane fly - family Tipulidae - "crane-fly" found in content
dance fly N/A no page - family Empididae
deer fly correct deer fly - family Tabanidae
dog fly not sure no page - family Muscidae - can use stable fly page
flesh fly wrong flesh-fly - family Sarcophagidae
flower fly wrong flower-fly - family Syrphidae
flower-loving fly N/A no page - family Apioceridae
grass fly not sure no page - family Asilidae - can use robber fly page
horse fly wrong Horse-fly - family Tabanidae
house fly wrong housefly - family Muscidae
hover fly not sure flower-fly - see flower fly - family Syrphidae
long-legged fly N/A no page - family Dolichopodidae
march fly wrong horse-fly - yes "horse-fly" (Diptera: Tabanidae)!!!

march flies are in the family Bibionidae
minute black scavenger fly N/A no page - family Scatopsidae
moth fly not sure only family Psychodidae page
mydas fly N/A no page - family Mydidae
phantom crane fly N/A no page - family Ptychopteridae
primitive crane fly not sure only family Tanyderidae page
robber fly correct robber fly - family Asilidae
sand fly wrong sandfly - has a picture of Culicoides sp. (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae)!!!

Sand flies are in the family Psychodidae
small-headed fly not sure only family Acroceridae page
snipe fly N/A no page - family Rhagionidae
soldier fly not sure only family Stratiomyidae page
stable fly correct stable fly - no redirect pages - "stable-fly" found in content

family Muscidae
stiletto fly not sure only family Therevidae page
tangle-veined fly N/A no page - family Nemestrinidae
window fly N/A no page - family Scenopinidae
winter crane fly N/A no page - family Trichoceridae

[edit] Weight

Alright, that sounds all very nice, but I wanted to know a rough figure for the weight of a (house) fly. A web search doesn't tell me either.

Thanks

Stephan

[edit] Spelling

This article was recently moved from "housefly" to "house-fly". I don't think this was a wise move:

  • Encyclopedia Britannica, Encylopedia.com, Webster, Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, MeSH all call it "housefly"
  • a PubMed search shows slightly more articles using "housefly" than "house fly"; I couldn't locate a single article using "house-fly"
  • Google is about equally divided between "housefly" and "house fly", even if the search is restricted to .edu sites only.
  • Google's search engine does not seem to distinguish between "house fly" and "house-fly"; however on the first ten result pages from a Google search for "house-fly", not a single article actually uses the hyphenated version.
  • The only place I could find "house-fly" was in the Oxford English Dictionary.

In summary, I'd say that "housefly" and "house fly" win, with "house-fly" a distant third; we should follow the other dictionaries and encyclopedias and go with "housefly" as our main entry. AxelBoldt 18:56, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think the person who moved it is probably British, since the OED (needlessly to say, a British dictionary) lists only "house-fly". As much as I like British spelling, the WP policy states that whichever spelling -- American or British -- comes first shall stay unchanged unless with good reasons. --Menchi 19:18, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Doing a Google search for "house-fly" on .uk sites, I definitely find more occurrences of "house-fly" than on US sites, but even in .uk they're still outnumbered by "house fly" about 5 to 1. Also, the Cambridge Dictionary and Freesearch are both British and prefer "housefly". AxelBoldt 00:51, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, I didn't realise at the time that this ws such a can of worms. I do think, however, that there is a case for it. Please see Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(fauna) for my reasons, such as they were. Stemonitis 09:13, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Ok, continuing discussion over there. AxelBoldt 19:30, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Question: (not sure if this belongs here)

Why do flies keep flying around in circles and when they meet up, they fight or something?

The 'fight' is probably an attempt at copulation. I am not sure about the circles, but I guess they either could be because of the close light sources in human areas, or to throw off predators. Insects that use the sun or moon to navigate expect the light sources they use to not move with respect to them when they fly around, and thus get confused by closer light sources such as lightbulbs. When they try to maintain a constant flight angle with respect to a nearby lightsource, they end up flying in spirals around it. This seems to be the case for moths, atleast, but houseflies seem to fly in more chaotic patterns, and to do so in any circumstance, so this explanation probably doesn't work for them. Amaurea 06:38, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

--- That's a good question I'd also like to know. :)

[edit] Images: Not of housefly

The first and third image aren't of houseflies as far as I can tell. They look like they might be of Sarcophaga carnaria (image here: http://www.uknature.co.uk/FleshFly.jpg), though it's a bit hard to tell with the third image. The second image looks correct. I think #2 should be used in the info-box, and the others replaced or deleted. Amaurea 22:56, 2005 Jun 14 (UTC)

The images seem to have changed since my last edit, but the one of the copulating flies [1] still seems to be of flesh flies instead of houseflies. Amaurea 06:38, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Restoring some information

I just restored the information about the project "web server in dead fly" again. Uses of flies in art are clearly relevant to the section "Humans and flies". I also added some depictions of flies in trompe l'oeil paintings.

The claim that house flies evolved in Africa and possibly entered America with Columbus is made by Benard Greenberg, author of Flies and Disease, reported in [2]. AxelBoldt 17:49, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

RE: Deleted once more. :) I think it's nonsense to include references to paintings and other forms of art concerning flies. It's not relevant when considering the biology and nature of this animal. I think you are misinterpreting the name of the section 'Humans and Flies'. This section was added, because houseflies are particularly well known for the commensal nature of their relationship with humans. Especially in colder climates, the housefly is only found in regions that are populated by man. Because they can carry pathogens, humans are constantly trying to rid this organism from their habitat. In other words, the section is about the biological relationship between the two.

Including references of how flies have been depicted or used in human art is not relevant for this section. Maybe you should create a section like 'Flies in popular culture', like it was done for articles on animals such as frogs, tigers and elephants.

Ok, that makes sense. I'm happy with a separate section, except that Christus' paintings aren't exactly "popular culture". AxelBoldt 16:29, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Why do they like poop?

What does a fly get out of poop? Moisture? Useful bacteria? Maybe poop smells enough like dead flesh to confuse a fly? (2005-11-14 03:02:58 24.170.177.130)

This question applies to many species of flies, as well as beetles and many other types of insects, and so probably doesn't belong on this page, but in general feces are incompletely digested, and still contain much nutrition in an easily digestable form. This makes them an ideal environment for many maggots. Poop is too big a part of the life of flies for them not to be well enough adapted to it to know it for what it is (if it hadn't been useful for the flies, then flies wasting time visiting it would have a competitive disadvantage). Amaurea 03:57, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
I've never seen maggots in poop. I've seen regular maggots in dead flesh, and tiny fruit-fly maggots in fruit, but never any maggots in poop. You sure about that? Do adult flies need food? 24.170.177.130 04:50, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Trapping

Add Method of killing flies, fly spray, bait jars, fly paper etc

Is that really relevant for this article? Would you put methods for killing raccoons in their article, just because they can be an annoyance too? Perhaps something like that could be mentioned in a section about their relationship with humans, but that would probably apply to many other kinds of flies too, and belong in a more general article. Amaurea 08:49, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
Add it. The raccoon case is borderline, because raccoons seldom need to be killed. Nearly everybody kills flies at least once a year. When was the last time you killed a raccoon? A few brief notes about raccoon bait would be proper I think. For flies, methods for killing them should get a large section. AlbertCahalan 05:54, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
But yuck, why does it have that suggestion of vacuuming flies? One is not supposed to vacuum flies, or spiders for that matter.Bib 15:14, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] External links

I think the articles are supposed to be as self-contained (witin Wikipedia) as possible, and external links confined to its own section. However, I can't find anything stating that in the manual of style. The life cycle image in the external link that was just added is nice, but the right way of doing it would be to find an image we could include in the article. I'll move that link to the external links section for now, but this article is getting to have a bit too many of those. Amaurea 18:56, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

housefly → house fly - Rationale: Common names for true flies (Diptera) have the word "fly" as a seperate word in the name. Other insects have the word "fly" attached to the common name (ex. dragonfly). Talk:housefly — Totipotent 22:55, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Survey

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~
  • Oppose: "Housefly" is at least as common, probably much more so. Jonathunder 22:36, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
Not moved as a no consensus. —Nightstallion (?) Seen this already? 10:35, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
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