Do flies bite?

We expect bites from many creatures in our spaces including mosquitoes and bed bugs even cockroaches. Yes, cockroaches can bite. But perhaps the one insect we do not expect to inflict a bite on us is the fly. Maybe that is because man and flies have been existing with each other for centuries without an escalation in interactions except for the annoying nuisance the latter poses.

What many people don’t realize is that not all the flies they see buzzing around are common house flies. There are other species of flies that are more aggressive and need a blood meal to survive. These types of flies are very aggressive and are also capable of transmitting disease as is the case with the tsetse fly that transmits sleeping sickness. These flies are found in nomadic environments and are dreaded by cattle rearing communities on the African continent. In the United States you will come across the following.

Types of biting flies

Horse flies

These species of flies have mouth parts that can slice into the human skin when they bite into you. They are large in size which can intensify their bite considerably and cause you to feel the most pain out of all the biting flies. Theses flies are aptly named because they love to dig into horses but they will bite you too if you are available.

Deer flies

These flies are slightly smaller than the common house fly and only come around I the spring time. They also feature scissor like mouth parts that they use to slice into your skin.  Their bite is more or less like the horse fly bite but not as intense in pain and damage. This is not to say the bite is not painful because it is.

Snipe flies

These are close cousins to the deer flies but they do not bite. Instead they use their serrated mouth parts to cause irritation to the skin. And although they don’t break skin they do make you extremely uncomfortable.

Stable flies

These flies come around in the late summer time and love to feed on livestock. They can also be seen in the early fall. Stable flies feature a proboscis that they use to suck the blood out of the livestock. It is quite sharp as you can imagine to be able to penetrate the hide of cattle.

Black flies

The black fly loves areas that have a nearby water source. This fly has a distinct hunched back which defines it from other buzzing flies. It is a ruthless biter and it is a persistent nuisance in the northern states in America.