Week One: Black Fly

Common Name: Black Fly

Scientific Name: Simulium Damnosum

Domain: Eukaryota

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Arthropoda

Class: Insecta

Order: Diptera

Family: Simuliidae

Genus: Simulium

Species: S. damnosum

Description: Black flies follow the generic design of the diptera order, which includes common houseflies and the more rotund blowfly. Unlike these cousins, however, the black fly has a distinctly divided head and thorax. The head is oriented downward toward the flesh on which it can often be found, and features large vertical oval eyes. The abdomen is fat and segmented. The wings, following the fashion of the dipteran, are colorless and transparent and two in number (“di”=two, “ptera”=wing). The black fly typically measures from 2-5 millimeters.

Environment: S. damnosum is mainly found in the fertile river valleys of West Africa. Black flies congregate in biting swarms around rivers and riverbanks, and attack any warm-blooded animal unlucky enough to stumble into a swarm. Determined swarms have been known to kill their victims by sheer exsanguination.

Reproduction & Development: Once mature, female black flies mate and afterward begin feeding on as much blood as they are able to extract from their victims. Over a month’s time they lay eggs on the surface of swiftly flowing rivers and then die. These eggs will hatch into larvae—maggots—that live in the mud of the river’s banks until they undergo metamorphosis.

Nutritional Requirements: Black flies are opportunistic and feed on the blood of any warm-blooded animal they are able to find.

Not-So-Fun Fact: West African black flies carry the nematode whose scientific name is Onchocerca volvulus. This worm’s larvae, called microfiliae, cause onchocerciasis, which is often referred to as “river blindness.” The microfiliae’s wanderings inside a human host cause infection and blindness in the eyes and provoke lesions, rashes, depigmentation, and severe irritation of the skin.