Top 10- FAQ about Biting Flies
Biting flies are a terror of summer who leaves their mark on all of us - literally. Find out more about biting flies and how to avoid their painful sting. Below are the answers to ten common questions about biting flies and a solution to live out their harassment.
10. What Brings Biting Flies to the Beach?
Technically, the answer to this question is their wings. However, the reason biting flies are at the beach is that so many people, dog, and even seals lie on the beach. All that exposed skin is a buffet to biting flies.
9. Where do Biting Flies come from?
Again, Technically they come from the last generation of biting flies. Geographically, biting flies breed in areas that are moist, dark, and sultry. The exact habitat varies from one species of biting flies to the next. Some prefer to lay eggs on carcasses while other species prefer the underside of a leaf in a bog. In general, biting flies lay eggs in locations that best suit the characteristics of that species. These areas are often high in humidity and shaded.
8. Where do Biting Flies Live
Biting flies live all over the world. In the US, they are every state. These are flies that have a close relationship with water. For many decades we thought that like the mosquito, they laid eggs in water. That assumption came because wetlands, bogs, marshes, and other muddy areas are common haunts of biting flies. Some species of biting flies will fly 10-miles to find something to bite. Many species of biting flies are opportunistic. This means they live where food is most prevalent and in areas that are suitable breeding habitats.
7. Why Are Flies Biting My Dog's Ears?
When biting flies bite us we slap them. Dogs cannot slap their ears so part of the reason why biting flies bite dogs on the ears is that it is fairly safe to do so. The rest of the logic behind this behavior is that the ears offer easy access to blood. Dog ears generally have short and thin hair making it easy for the fly to puncture the skin. Also, like human ears, dog ears have a lot of small blood vessels near the surface of the skin giving the fly an easy means of obtaining blood to eat.
6. Why Are Flies Biting Me?
Biting flies are prey driven. They target larger animals such as deer, elk, moose, cows, and livestock. They also are opportunists and will bite any warm-blooded creature - that means you. These are flies that can track prey on many levels. They look for darker objects that move. They also have specialized cells in their antenna that allow them to track your vape trail via the carbon dioxide that you exhale.
5. Why Do Biting Flies Bite?
It is in their name. If they didn't bite, they'd just be flies. It could be that they are angry; however, the real reason is simple. It is only the females that bite and she needs the protein in your blood to help her reproduce. Her body requires a lot of energy to produce all those eggs. The reason she bites is that she needs your help to create more biting flies.
4. Why Do Biting Flies Bite My Ankles
For much the same reason that biting flies bite the dog's ears. Ankles are often exposed and because there are a lot of bony areas in the ankle the blood vessels are close to the surface. This allows the fly to bite and eat quickly which reduces their odds of getting slapped. In short, ankles are an easy target.
3. Why Biting Flies Bite Humans?
We are tasty. The female biting fly does not care what or why they bite so long as that creature is warm-blooded. Some flies will travel as far as ten miles from the area where they lay eggs to find a blood meal. If you are in that area, they will happily feed on your blood as you are a prime target simply because you are there. To a biting fly, you are fair game.
2. Why Do Biting Flies Bite Before a Rain?
Biting flies are at home in sultry conditions. Humans and other animals sweat to cool themselves when the temperature is warmer. As we do, we emit more body odors which attract the flies. At the same time, when it gets ready to rain, the humidity in the air rises and the air pressure changes. Those are all signals to the fly to hunt and it is quite possible that finding prey is much easier during these periods. The rain itself has little to do with the process as flies are not out in the rain.
1. How do you really stop biting flies?
People have asked this question for millennia. Until recently, many had the answer all wrong. We've built traps in the past that kind of work. We tried to poison them with pesticides and failed. We've tried dozens of ideas and come up with nothing - until now. If you want to stop biting flies from biting then you need to catch them in the Fly Cage. The Fly Cage is a smart trap. The Fly Cage attracts flies to it. They fly in, and they cannot escape. The trap uses all of the flies prey-driven instincts against it and the trap works well to stop biting flies.
Learn more about how the Fly Cage works and how it can help control your biting fly population by reaching out to our team.