Bull horsefly: description, features and habitat

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:46

For many villagers, horseflies are a real disaster. I remember that even Pushkin lamented in his novel in verse that flies and mosquitoes interfere with enjoying the red summer. Probably, the great poet has not yet met a bull horsefly, otherwise he would have been given a special place in poetry. Or maybe Alexander Sergeevich simply included him in the category of flies. After all, both of them belong to the same detachment - Diptera.

Gidflies - large blood-sucking flies

Any representative of the midge annoys warm-blooded animals with their bites. But bull horsefly is among the first in this rating. It bites very painfully, cutting the body with its stilettos located near the mouth. Moreover, it lets a substance into the wound so that the blood does not clot longer. Because of this, the bite site becomes inflamed, itchy. It can even cause an animal or a person to have a fever and feel worse. With multiple bites, high intoxication was registered in people, which had to be treated in a hospital.

This insect is only called that - bull horsefly. And in fact, he does not disdain anyone. Cows and horses on a leash, if they are attacked by a lot of horseflies,break down and run away from these places. It also happens that an animal, tormented by stinging insects, rushes into an impenetrable thicket so that the branches of trees and bushes save them from torment, go into the water and get stuck in the swamps.

It's good if they return to their place of detention. But often cattle, disoriented from pain, can get lost and not find their way back, catching a leash rope on bushes or tree trunks, and die without water and drink. And the swamps do not always let go of their prey.

If at the very least it is possible to knock down a painfully stinging insect from the croup with the tail, legs, horns, then it is almost impossible to shake them off the head and muzzle. Caring owners even put on specially tailored sweatshirts for their pets, which the bull gadfly cannot cut through. Some even manage to make and put stockings on the cattle's legs to protect the poor animal from this scourge.

Not just bitten - infected with a disease

Bull horsefly is an extremely harmful insect. In addition to the fact that this bloodsucker annoys the cattle with its bites, it is a distributor of various diseases. These are tularemia, and anthrax, and filariasis, and trypanosomiasis, and poliomyelitis.

Bull-gadfly does not disdain to taste the blood of corpses three days ago. And this is even worse than the transfer of infection from one living being to another. After all, if the animal fell just as a result of a deadly disease, then there is no guarantee that the insect will not infect a person with it orlivestock.

Scientific classification

This insect belongs to the phylum Arthropoda. Horsefly is a species of two-winged insects. The suborder of this insect is Short-whiskers. Its scientific name is Tabanus bovinus. It belongs to the horsefly family. Their females are components of the midge.

Archaeologists find the remains of the ancestors of modern horseflies. Their approximate dwelling time is the Oligocene.

Appearance

Bull horsefly - a large fly. It reaches a size of 2.4 centimeters. This is the largest insect among Diptera.

The body of the insect is painted dark brown with blackish stripes. The breast is covered with yellow-black hairs. The abdomen of the horsefly itself is flat, consists of segments. In the middle of each tergite there is a gray-yellow or white elongated triangle with concave sides. A yellow-red stripe runs along the lateral edges of the abdomen.

The wings of the bullfly are brown and transparent. Behind the two well-developed wings are two h alteres.

The eyes of the insect are large, with multi-colored iridescent stains. In females, a visible dividing strip passes between them. The male horsefly differs from it in that its intereye is almost imperceptible, it is so small.

External differences between individuals of different sexes are called sexual dimorphism. In horseflies, it is also expressed in the fact that the abdomen of the male is pointed at the end, while that of the female is rounded.

Distribution of bovine horsefly

This is one ofthe most enduring creatures on earth. Bull horsefly is an insect that lives in almost all corners of Eurasia and even in Africa - in the northwest of the continent. It can be found even in the mountains, 2 km above sea level. There are no horseflies, only, perhaps, in places of permafrost and in a desert completely devoid of vegetation.

And this happens because the bovine horsefly, whose habitat is the edges of the forest, pastures, the coasts of water bodies, is able to give birth to large numbers of offspring in one season.

Reproduction of bovine horsefly

The female lays up to a thousand elongated grayish eggs at a time, attaching them to the leaves of plants. The insect prefers to do this near water bodies. After hatching, the larvae burrow into moist soil. There they lead a predatory lifestyle. After some time, the larvae pupate. During this period, they are very similar to butterfly pupae.

Before the important process of laying eggs, the female should be well nourished by the blood of animals, birds or people. In some cases, when there are no warm-blooded mammals around, the insect even attacks monitor lizards. And these reptiles are cold-blooded reptiles.

This fact once again confirms the opinion that this blood-sucking gnat is called bullfly in vain. He, or more accurately, she, doesn't stick to clear boundaries when it comes to exactly who to attack in order to get fed.

Why was the gender specification used in the previous phrase? Yes, because the male horsefly eatsnectar and sugary secretions of plants and aphids. For this reason, it is not blood-sucking. And the female also does not need blood before fertilization.

Three to four days after laying, the female can repeat the bloodsucking procedure. After that, she is again able to lay a batch of eggs. This process can be repeated up to five times per season. As a result, the female horsefly will lay up to 3500 eggs!

Meaning in nature

Many people, especially rural residents, who are pestered by these vicious blood-sucking flies and interfere with the breeding of livestock, the question arises: why not kill the bullfly at all? But it turns out that this is absolutely impossible. After all, this insect, like all others, is a component of natural communities. By erasing it from the face of the Earth, one can upset the established balance. This will definitely come back as a negative manifestation.

In fact, horseflies serve as food for dozens of groups of animals: birds, fish, reptiles. No wonder many fishermen use this particular insect as bait. And quite well, by the way.

The corpses of insects, falling to the ground, fertilize it, which is also one of the reasons for the inexhaustibility of our soils.

Another question: how to reduce the harm caused by this gnat? As it turned out, horseflies do not tolerate the smell of wormwood. Therefore, it is recommended to hang bunches of this odorous grass on doorposts and window frames during the period of special activity of these insects (in June-July). There is hardly a horsefly that dares to overcome such an obstacle.

In the barnyardsto reduce the number of bloodsuckers, arrange special reservoirs for them, pouring a little fuel oil or kerosene there. Insects, trying to get drunk during the flight, cannot take off and fall into a puddle, where they die.

People who are forced to work in the garden or yard at noon, graze animals in pastures or work in the field, use chemical repellents as protection against bites. Also helps them clothes made of dense fabric. The face is protected by a hat with a net, which beekeepers usually use.

Interesting facts related to the lifestyle of bull gadfly

Adult insects of this species do not feed. Imago most of the time are in flight, focusing on vision.

Female horseflies react to large moving objects. Therefore, they often choose cars or boats as their prey and begin to pursue them. The speed of a moving object can reach 40 kilometers per hour. Moreover, horseflies will pursue a boat that has sailed several hundred kilometers from the shore!

Experiments have proven that horseflies do not attack striped objects. Apparently, this is due to the structure of their visual organs. They are especially confused by such a fact as non-parallel stripes. Zebras, which have just this color, practically do not suffer from horsefly attacks.