Please help!!!!! Need some Identification

[Rachel Garnie]

Hi all,

I am a little embarassed about this but last week I noticed some Reddish pupae around the edges of my carpet. I initially thought it was a house fly or some sort but today some hatched and they look really weird, creeping me out.

Can someone please identify them?? I'd be very greatful! Maybe they are just young house flies or green bottles or something? I have no idea but red eyes, and a weird bulbous white head!

fly313 - Wild About Britain Pics

[Jason Green]

Morning Rachel, and welcome to WAB!

Can you get slightly more distant photos? They're a touch too blurred to see much useful detail. In the mean-time though there are a couple of Sarcophagid and Tachinid flies that have produced foreheads like that.

Don't be embarrassed!

Take care,

Jason

[JRsbugs]

It looks like a Gonia sp. to me! I wonder what they were living on.. Tachinids usually parasitise other bugs or insects.

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Janet

[JRsbugs]

If it is Gonia sp., these all parasitise caterpillars of Lepidoptera. Could there have been a caterpillar pupate somewhere?

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[Rachel Garnie]

Well the strange thing is, about to a ratio of 50%/50% some are these white things and the other 50% are green bottles... I really don't know the cause of it! The house is spotless and theres never any rotting meat etc!

[Rachel Garnie]

there are no maggots to be seen ANYWHERE though, ive proper examined almost the whole carpet including spraying raid all over it etc and there is definately no movement, so it looks like they have either all pupated and i missed the maggot stage ( thank god) or they are deep underground and burrowing through the floors to pupate? i really have no idea!

[Gerel]

I not sure that the bulbous head is that significant. Some of the bluebottle types can look like that when freshly emerged from the pupa. (like this Blue Bottle Fly (Calliphora Erythrocephala) Newly Hatched, Still Has Forehead Bubble And Body Is Light And Soft, Worldwide Distribution Stock Photo Image)

I wonder if there is dead bird or mouse hidden somewhere and these flies are coming from that.

[Rachel Garnie]

ah great that is more like it! almost looks identical and the ones i see flying around are green tinged.. all windows are closed however so i dont know where i am seeing these adult green bottles come from? Perhaps there is some type of crack or opening?

[Matt Smith]

Have you got a cat?

As you say, you are getting a mix of "greenbottles" and the funny looking things. The funny looking things are flies that have recently emerged from their puparia.

Flies like this use an organ on the front of their head like an expandable balloon to break open their puparia. This is normally retracted back into front of the head and never seen again, they then find somewhere to climb up and expand their wings. However, if they dry out too fast after emerging then they sometimes get "stuck" halfway, with wings unexpanded or the "balloon" visible.

As for the cat question, my immediate thought is that the cat brought you a "present" and hid it somewhere in the house. This has provided food for a batch of fly maggots which have pupated around the edge of the carpet as you describe.

[JRsbugs]

Have you got a chimney? I occasionally get a blowfly coming down mine but only one at a time.

I'm wondering if there had been a dead bird stuck in the chimney (if you have one) where you wouldn't smell it with updrafts. Larva of flies might then have dropped to the bottom and found a place to pupate, others pupated in the chimney so the already matured flies could have come from a chimney. Some people have an air vent where a chimney has been closed off.