[Back Talk]

In the February issue of PCT, we ran the winning and finalist photos from our annual photo contest. One of the photos (right) was labeled as a house fly (Musca domestica) by the photographer. PCT received a letter questioning that identification. When the photographer, Jennifer Dacey, stuck by her guns about what type of fly it was, we forwarded the photo to PCT technical editor Stoy Hedges, who weighed in. We thought readers would enjoy the dialogue that follows. — Editor

1. He Said

This certainly does not look like a house fly. Presence or absence of bristles, wing venation, and plumose, branched or bare arista are all important characteristics in the identification of Diptera, which cannot be determined by looking at a picture. However, based on what can be seen, a good guess is that this fly belongs to the family Calliphoridae, which are commonly called green and blue bottle flies and blow flies. These flies are more commonly found on flowers than house flies.

Hanif Gulmahamad

Operations Training Specialist/Urban and Structural Entomologist

Los Angeles Unified School District

Los Angeles, Calif.

*****

2. She Said

I’m sticking with my identification of a house fly, (Muscidae). I can see how Dr. Gulmahamad could have been confused because of the shiny appearance of the thorax due to the angle of the sun. But if you look closely, there are four longitudinal black stripes on the thorax, which is a key identification marker for house flies.

Jennifer Dacey

Quality Control Specialist

Waltham Services

Sterling, Conn.

*****

3. Stoy Said

It is really difficult to tell what type of fly this is because you really need to be able to look at other parts than the top of the pronotum (notum) for good identification of flies.

I looked at the photo carefully and can barely detect the wing venation. There are a couple of species in the family Muscidae (where the house fly belongs) that have a metallic green sheen to their coloring but the only way to tell between the two families is to count the number of hairs on one of the side thoracic plates. The four stripes on the prothorax appear on many species of Muscidae.

I believe this fly belongs to either the family Muscidae (house fly and relatives) or Tachnidae. Dr. Gulmahamad related to me in a separate e-mail that he thought it could also be a screwworm fly of the family Calliphoridae, but that genus has three stripes on its notum, not four. I more strongly lean toward a tachnid fly due to the wing venation, coloration and the faint outline of stiff hairs on the abdomen showing through the wing. This is not a member of the family Calliphoridae to which the blow flies belong. Tachnids and many species of Muscidae will visit flowers while few Calliphorids will be seen on flowers.

Both Dr. Gulmahamad and I now believe that the pictured fly is likely not a house fly, but, of course, we can never be sure since we don’t have the actual fly. It is a great photo, however.

Stoy Hedges

Manager, Technical Services

Terminix International

Memphis, Tenn.
 

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Thanks for ‘Watching’ Us

A-Active Termite & Pest Control Company was truly honored to be a part of the inaugural "Top 25 Companies to Watch" and will do our level best to make PCT proud for presenting us with this high honor (see January 2010 PCT)!

We are off to a great start this year, despite the weather. 2009 was much better than we forecasted for both sales and profits. The recession has made us a better business. I’m very optimistic about the 2010 forecast. I’ve learned that there is a "flight to quality during adverse economic times" and we measure and manage quality in an unforgiving way. I believe that this has been the cornerstone of our success over the past two years. Our client retention is as high as it was pre-recession, which makes growth attainable. We ask a lot of questions and act on the information that we receive from both clients and employees alike. This year we have started to measure employee satisfaction as a part of our overall quality scoring matrix. It’s a work in progress, but so far has exposed some very useful information.

Kevin J. Kordek

President

A-Active Termite & Pest Control Company

Virginia Beach, Va.