Let's show how creative you are:- Drawing - Housefly

• After I was through, I decided to draw another housefly different from the one I had drawn before, but a longer one.

The housefly is an insect we see around our surroundings and sometimes in our homes. It's scientific name is Musca domestica. The housefly is 5 to 7 mm long, the female is usually larger than the male. They have 5 eyes,3 on top of their heads, and two large compound eyes. They can taste with their feet. They can walk upside down. They are able to see behind them.

Houseflies live everywhere humans are. The housefly is probably the insect with the widest distribution in the world. They are pest to humans mainly because of their habits of contaminating foodstuffs. They have many predators including birds, reptiles, amphibians, various insects and spiders.

Adults are mainly carnivorous, they feed on animal matter, feces, milk, sugary substances, rotting fruits and vegetables. Adult houseflies are diurnal and rest at night.

Houseflies can fly for several kilometers from their breeding places, carrying a wide variety of organisms on their hairs, mouthparts, and feces. The main routes to human infection are through the housefly's regurgitation and defecation. The housefly carries diseases like food poisoning, dysentery, diarrhea.

The female housefly usually mates only once and stores the sperm for later use. It lays batches of about 100 eggs on decaying organic matter such as food waste or feces. Adult flies normally live for two to four weeks.

Houseflies play an important ecological role in breaking down and recycling organic matter.

Housefly larvae are as nutritious as fish meal, and could be used to convert waste to insect based animal feed for farmed fish and livestock.

They are useful in pollinating plants.

I hope you learnt something today about the housefly. Even tho we find it irritating, it still plays a part as it is beneficial to man.