Hello! A couple of years ago I had a cow on my farm.
Gradually, time to look after and take care of her became less and less, so I decided to sell it. Not so simple was the care of their own cattle.
Yes, and I always felt sorry for her when I saw her torment from the attack of blood-sucking insects. It was at that time that I learned about the main difference between horsefly and gadfly. I want to share with you information about these insects, which many consider the same creature.
The content of the article:
Horsefly and Gadfly
There is an assumption that horsefly got its name due to exorbitant obsession. And indeed, obsessed with the desire to drink blood, the female of this insect does not consider danger and intrusively sits on the body. The size of the insect is 2-3 cm, very often horseflies are confused with a gadfly.
Today, according to scientists, there are about 3 thousand species of horseflies. Only a female bites and drinks blood; neither rain nor heat can stop her. She can drink up to 200 milligrams of blood at a time.
A person can successfully resist this onslaught, and livestock deprived of human ingenuity suffers incredibly from horseflies. Exhausted by the molestation of horseflies, a distraught animal flees, hiding in the thick of shrubs or climbing into the water.
Blood is necessary for horseflies not only as food, but also as a substance necessary for reproduction. Each female makes at least five ovipositions per season; each usually consists of 300-400 eggs.
Horsefly larvae hatch in moist land after 12 days. In the stage of larvae, a new generation of horseflies remains throughout autumn and winter. The pupation process begins only in May and lasts a whole month.
Gadgets are much smaller than horseflies, and even less annoying people (except, perhaps, the subcutaneous gadfly, which will be discussed later). At least they don’t drink blood. But livestock suffers from them much more: female gadflies chose the skin of animals as a "kindergarten" for the development of their larvae.
The larvae of the gastric gadfly, as their name implies, develop in the stomach of the animal. However, the female cannot penetrate deep into the body of the cow or horse, so that the larvae get to their destination, the female lays them on those parts of the animal’s body that it most often scratches with teeth - for example, on the inside of the legs.
With one of these scratches, the larva appears in the animal’s mouth and begins a slow journey to the target: within a month it develops in the tissues of the tongue, then it enters the mucous membrane, through which it descends into the stomach. Fennel-gadfly females attach eggs to the mustache of the animal, from there they penetrate into its stomach.
And the herbalist gadfly found an even more complicated mediation: it attaches the eggs to the grass in which the animals graze, and they enter the body along with the grass.The larvae of the subcutaneous gadfly bite into the skin of animals and live under it.
Their victims are not only large animals, but also small rodents. The nasopharyngeal gadfly places its offspring in the nostrils of horses, deer and other large animals, injecting a certain amount of nutrient fluid for the larvae, as they say, for the first time.
However, this sometimes negatively affects the life of the larvae. At the moment of the “injection”, the animal begins to beat with its hooves, raising clouds of dust around itself.
Dust settles in the nasopharynx, drying its integument, which causes the larvae to die. However, far from all. Having developed in the mucous membrane of the mouth, adult larvae leave their host in the same way as they got into it - through the nostrils.
The female nasopharyngeal gadfly leaves up to 400-500 larvae. However, she never lays them in the nasopharynx of one animal, as it may not withstand a large number of parasites and die.
And with it, the larvae will die. The death of an animal as a result of the activity of larvae parasitizing on it is not a very rare phenomenon. If, for example, larvae of sheep gadfly in large numbers (30-50 pieces) get through the nasopharynx into the frontal sinuses, the sheep becomes ill with a “false twirl”.
The animal begins to spin non-stop in one place and after some time dies. Some larvae can penetrate the respiratory tract and cause pneumonia, and the result for the animal will be just as sad.
Some types of subcutaneous gadfly are dangerous to humans. There are times when they inject larvae into the eyes, which leads to conjunctivitis - inflammation of the mucous membrane of the eyes. The penetration of larvae into the eyes and head of a person is even more dangerous. It does not do without a special rather complicated operation, as a result of which the victim may lose his sight.
If for some reason they cannot get close to the animal they have chosen, they resort to the "delivery service." You might think that these insects have logical thinking. Judge for yourself. The female has the time to lay eggs, but the "forbidden fruit" - the animal - is not available to her.
Then she begins to look for that of her fellow insects, who more often than others have contact with warm-blooded. They turn out to be mosquitoes, eating blood. The female gadfly looks for the mosquito, catches her and, on the fly, embraces her for a split second.
At the same time, she masterly, with one touch, attaches the egg with her belly to the mosquito's body. Sooner or later, the mosquito, equipped with a live load, sits on the animal and begins to drink its blood. At this moment, a sharp larva partes with it and bites into the skin of a new host.
What is the difference between a gadfly and horsefly
According to biologists, today there are more than 3,000 species of horseflies. Many of them are very similar to gadflies. Both types of insects annoyingly annoy people and animals, so they are often confused. What is the difference between gadfly and horsefly?
The bite of this insect is very painful. Horsefly saliva contains anticoagulants and toxic substances that cause itching, burning, redness, swelling of tissues, etc.
Symptoms may persist for several days.In addition, horseflies can be carriers of diseases such as polio, foot and mouth disease, anthrax, etc.
It should be noted that the male horsefly is not a blood-sucking insect. It feeds on flower nectar. Blood is needed only for horsefly females. In addition to nutritional value, they need it for reproduction.
Horseflies seem to resemble a large fly. They have two rigid wings, strong sharp stilettos and dense proboscis. Horseflies always live near water bodies. This is because moisture is needed for the masonry to survive. In urban conditions, these insects practically do not live.
Gadgets in size are significantly inferior to horseflies. In nature, there are about 150 varieties of this insect. Their key difference is the lack of interest in blood.
The importunity of gadflies is in no way connected with nutrition. Many varieties of this insect use the skin as a place to grow offspring.
The subcutaneous gadfly parasitizes both in the body of the animal and in the human body. Even small rodents become a victim of its larvae. This insect can be under the skin for several months, moving to the back.
The remaining types of gadflies are not dangerous for humans, with the exception of cases of larvae getting into the eyes. The result of such actions can be conjunctivitis, and even visual damage, requiring surgical intervention.
However, gadflies bother animals very much. The larvae of many of them develop in the stomach of animals, and in order to get there they attach to the grass, mustache or feet of the victim. Some gadfly develops in the nasopharynx and respiratory tract of the animal, which often leads to death.
Conclusions:
- There are more species of horseflies than gadflies.
- Horseflies are blood-sucking insects, gadflies are not.
- Horseflies make laying of larvae in moist ground or on plants near water bodies, gadflies - under the skin of animals.
- Gadgets are parasites, horseflies are not.
- Horsefly bite is more painful and symptoms last longer.
- Gadgets are more inventive in trying to get inside the victim.
- The gadfly is much smaller in size than horseflies.
Horseflies and gadflies: how they are dangerous to humans
These large flies that live in humid rural areas have been faced by many Russians, but few know that horseflies and gadflies can be deadly to humans.
Gadgets
Horseflies, unlike gadflies, are equipped with a meaty proboscis, inside which there are hard and sharp stitching and cutting blades. That is why a horsefly bite is so painful for both humans and animals. On the skin in this place for several days, thickening and redness persists, a slight temperature may rise.
There were cases when, after an attack of a dozen horseflies, a person fell into intensive care and needed a blood transfusion. The bite of one horsefly in terms of the amount of blood drawn is on average equal to the bites of almost 70 mosquitoes.
Carriers of infections
But the main danger for the animal and man is not in the fact that horseflies drink his blood, but in the fact that they inject their saliva into the tissues with toxic and anticoagulant components. Accordingly, the blood does not clot for a long time and continues to ooze from the wound, even long after a bite.
But in addition to these components, horsefly saliva often contains nematodes and other bacteria. These large flies are the main carriers of such dangerous diseases as anthrax, tularemia, trypanosomiasis, filariasis,
Therefore, immediately after the horsefly attack, the site of the bite should be pressed down to reduce the spread of its saliva, cool the swollen skin with ice, rinse the wound with water and burn it with alcohol, brilliant green or iodine.
If during the first days after the bite the redness and swelling on the skin did not subside, but rather began to increase, then you should immediately consult a doctor.
Gadgets
These two-winged large flies are somewhat similar to horseflies, but do not bite at all. Gadflies are born without a proboscis and blades, they do not drink plant juices and blood, because their life cycle usually does not exceed 22 days.
There are about 150 species of gadflies, but 2 species that are often found in our country are dangerous for humans.
Larvae of subcutaneous gadfly
Subcutaneous gadflies tend to lay eggs, attaching them to the hair on the body of the animal.
Further, the matured larvae penetrate through the skin into the body and migrate in the tissues, making their way up to the back of the animal, causing miases. And finally, matured larvae fall under the skin of the back, form nodules with fistulas and go outside. But the animal remains alive.
When the larva of the subcutaneous gadfly falls on the human body and begins its usual way up, it does not fall on the back, but in the brain, because people are erect.
And such migration of the parasite always leads to death for humans. In medicine, many similar cases have been recorded and the doctors were not able to detect and then remove the migrating larva from the human body.
Cavity gadfly larvae
This fly is often called the Russian gadfly and mainly its larvae parasitize on sheep, goats and horses. But again, there are many known cases of parasites entering the human body. The female gadfly sprays its mature larvae on the fly, while aiming at the eyes or nostrils of the animal.
Further, the larvae parasitize on the eyelid, in the mucous membrane of the eye or nose, inside the eyeball, but they can also move on to settle in the nasal or frontal sinus, pharynx and cause abdominal myiasis.
But it should be noted that there are practically no deaths from a larval gadfly larva entering the human eye. The fact is that at the time of spraying, the larva has such clinging qualities that once on the eyelid or in the eye, it is simply impossible to remove it yourself.
A person is forced to consult a doctor and a medical operation is immediately prescribed. It is possible to get the larva from the eye only surgically and vision, of course, suffers after that. But man remains alive, and this is the most important thing.
Horseflies and gadflies
Horseflies - large flies (up to 2-3 centimeters). Everyone knows how painfully they bite and how annoying on a hot summer day. Livestock, wild animals - moose, deer, even rodents, birds and large lizards - all suffer from horsefly bites.
Only females suck blood (and at one time as many as seventy mosquitoes!). Male horseflies feed on nectar of flowers, sweet sap of trees, "honey dew", abundantly aphids.
Horseflies usually attach their eggs to plants near and above water. Larvae live in water or in moist places on land. They have no legs, they are replaced by thickenings and tubercles on the body. Resting against them, the larvae crawl pretty quickly. PredatorsThey attack insect larvae, crustaceans, and earthworms.
Gadgets are smaller than horseflies, but even more unpleasant insects than horseflies. Dangerous parasites. Their larvae parasitize on different animals. There are subcutaneous gadfly, gastric, nasopharyngeal ...
In Central and South America, a green yellow-footed fly, a dermatobia gadfly, lives. Locals call her larvae mosquito worms. Where there are many mosquitoes, these flies also curl. How do they manage to do the following: quickly approach on the fly and then, easily touching the mosquito with their abdomen, glue their eggs?
They take root and grow: a very painful nodule forms under the skin, up to two or more centimeters across. In the nodule, there is a fistula, through it the air necessary for breathing enters the larva.
Through the same fistula, a mature larva crawls out and falls to the ground, where it pupates, then turning into an adult gadfly, which, if it is a female, immediately goes in search of males of its own species, and then mosquitoes.
The female gastric hook gadfly lays eggs on the skin of donkeys and horses, precisely at such places that these artiodactyls most often scratch with their teeth, for example, on the inside of their front legs. Once in the mouth of a horse, gadfly larvae live and develop for about a month in the tissues of her tongue.
Then they are introduced into the mucous membrane of the mouth, along it reach the pharynx and stomach, in which dozens and hundreds of larvae often live. Ready for pupation, they go outside with their droppings and complete the transformation on the ground.
Another gadfly parasitizing on artiodactyls lays eggs on the lips of horses. Its larvae do not develop in the stomach, but in the small intestines. A grass-herd gadfly glues eggs not to wool, but to grass. Horses eat them along with grass.
Nasopharyngeal gadfly - viviparous insects. Their females literally spray ready-made larvae into the nostrils of horses, deer, fallow deer, deer, elk, roe deer, and sheep. But not all the larvae that hatch from the eggs in the body of the female (there may be five hundred) are settled by a two-winged mother in the nostrils of one animal, but only a small part.
If there are too many of them, they will destroy the animal on which they parasitize, and after that they will die. From the nostrils, the larvae crawl into the mouth, develop in its mucous membrane, and then out through the nostrils.
Sheep and horse hypodermic gadflies spray larvae into the eyes, not only to animals, but also to humans. Then the mucous membrane of the eye becomes inflamed, and the person becomes ill with conjunctivitis.
A more dangerous disease in humans is the emergence of larvae of subcutaneous gadflies with their penetration into the head and eyes. To extract them from there, an operation is needed.
Larvae of hypodermic gadflies parasitize on domestic and wild animals, usually on ungulates, and also on rodents. The eggs of the female of these gadflies are laid on the wool. Larvae gnaw through the skin, hide under it, then along the subcutaneous connective tissue or through the muscles sneak up to the animal affected by them.
The adaptations of gadflies to parasitic life are amazing. But no less surprising is the reaction of those animals to which gadflies fly up to lay their eggs. After all, all this is done painlessly, not like the bites of horseflies.
However, deer, roe deer, cows, horses, as the gadfly draws near, bucking and shaking their heads frantically, they take off.How do they know that a flying fly is a gadfly and that contact with it threatens a painful disease? Researchers studying animal behavior have something to think about.
Gadfly - human skin gadfly (lat.Dermatobia hominis)
The gadfly is an insect from the gadfly family, the larvae of which parasitize in the body of large mammals. In total, there are over one hundred and fifty species of gadflies, but only one of them - human skin gadfly (lat. Dermatobia hominis) is terrible for people. Fortunately, he lives far from us - in Central America.
It is dangerous in that it bites almost imperceptibly, quickly laying larvae under the skin, which immediately begin to develop, which leads to various inflammations. Unpleasant, in general, the situation. Worst of all, when they penetrate the eyes or head of a person, then a complex operation is required to remove them.
In addition, some insects prefer to lay larvae on the back and sides of animals, others prefer the groin and the inside of their legs, while others choose the nostrils, ears and lips of the unfortunate victims.
The gadgets look a bit smaller than horseflies. They have large faceted eyes, a fluffy little body and transparent wings. Unlike the latter, they do not drink blood and bite solely in order to lay eggs. Although not all types of gadfly resort to bites.
For example, some females gently attach eggs to the victim's hairs, others may leave them on the grass in the hope that sooner or later cattle will swallow them with food.
And there are completely original subjects - this does not need to look for animals. They just fly to a place where there are many mosquitoes, find a suitable specimen, wrap it in a friendly embrace and carefully leave their egg on its back. A mosquito (or rather, a mosquito) serves as an excellent vehicle that will deliver a larva to its destination on time.
Here the fun begins. Rather, the most unpleasant for livestock. As a rule, the larva leaves the egg within 3-7 days. Moreover, hot weather of the order of 30-32 degrees is considered optimal for its development.
Without wasting time, the insidious invader penetrates the body of the poor fellow host. It is not known exactly where she goes, but the animal suffers greatly from this and loses weight.
For further growth, the larvae need oxygen, so they form fistulous holes in the skin. Through them, they then get out, where they fall to the ground and pupate.
Imagoes emerge from the pupae in just 2-3 seconds, and after a minute they can already fly and mate. In total, the larval development cycle lasts about a year.
It is curious that their life expectancy depends on the weather: if the days are clear and hot, then the gadflies quickly find their soul mate and lay their eggs.
If the days are rainy, they are able to sit in the grass for several days, waiting for the right moment. Moreover, all processes in their body are slowed down, which can significantly reduce energy costs.
Of course, every expectant mother tries to protect her offspring and “distribute” the children to different “kindergartens”, because if all of them are placed on one animal, it can simply die, and this cannot be allowed.
Interestingly, unfortunate victims always feel the approach of the gadfly. They begin to shake their heads, beat their tail, or try to escape from a dangerous place. How they distinguish them from simple flies remains a mystery.
Bloodsuckers. Gadgets
The next story in the “Bloodsuckers” series is about horseflies, fast-biting biting flies, compared to which mosquitoes seem to be just gentle charm. Large horseflies - Sudeten, bovine, big gray - in one sitting they can suck out as much blood as 70 mosquitoes drink!
But the way of life, the systematic position, the appearance of horseflies and gadflies are similar approximately like a shark-katran and sturgeon - if you run away and squint carefully, like, there are similarities. In fact, they are united only by the fact that they belong to the Diptera squad.
And then - significant systematic, morphological, biological, behavioral differences. Horseflies are representatives of the suborder of short-banded, longitudinally-seated Diptera, families close to them are long-tailed ladies, lionesses, kytri, lafrias, buzzing, etc.
The gadgets belong to the suborder of short-banded kruglosovny, to which everyone knows various flies - dung, blue and green carrion flies, our common “favorite” is the housefly and many, many others. Adult gadflies do not eat at all, their mouth organs are underdeveloped. They adapted to parasitization on mammals in the larval stage.
In gadflies, the larvae concentrate on the back of animals so as not to be crushed when they lie down, but can develop in completely different parts of the body, depending on the species. Then they begin to eat intensively. Under the skin of the animal, nodule forms, a fistula opens so that the larvae can breathe, and through which, having matured, they are selected into the wild.
With the mass exit of gadfly larvae, many species of animals “hunt” them for real feasts. People of some nationalities gladly use larvae for food, and they are considered a wonderful delicacy, delicacy and a means of strengthening male power.
The family of horseflies (Tabanidae) has nine genera, differing in appearance and biology. Unlike other dipterans (mosquitoes, midges, biting midges) horseflies prefer high temperature (23-35 ° C).
They appear with the onset of sustained heat. The lower threshold for horseflies is a temperature of 14-15 ° C, when they are just alive, and the blood does not suck.
If horseflies hadn’t bitten, they could have been considered perfect creations of nature - a powerful aircraft, high speed, a high degree of adaptability, a strong body and beautiful, colorful eyes that occupy most of the head, well developed, faceted.
Horsefly notices its victim at a distance of 1 km (!). In terms of quality of vision, these are real fly eagles. The flight speed of horseflies is up to 60 km / h, the flight range is 2-4 km, or even more.
In horseflies, sexual dimorphism is observed - in appearance, a female can be distinguished from a male. In females, the eyes are separated by the frontal stripe, in males, the distance between the eyes is almost not noticeable, and the abdomen is pointed at the end.
Anticoagulants prevent blood clotting, cause prolonged bleeding from wounds that do not heal for a long time.This attracts other bloodsucking insects. Toxic substances in saliva lead to redness and painful swelling of the skin.
Animals comb the places of bites before the formation of wounds, which leads to the development of dermatitis, in bad weather, the painful condition of the skin intensifies even more, because the necrosis of especially affected places begins, phlegmon and abscesses.
Males feed exclusively on plant juices (and again, men rejoice!), And females in a double way - sucking blood and plant juices. In horseflies, the need for carbohydrate food is explained by the large expenditure of energy during a quick flight.
Horseflies (like mosquitoes, mosquitoes, midges and woodlice) are characterized by a specific phenomenon with the beautiful name gonotrophic harmony - this is when the blood is digested simultaneously with the maturation of the eggs. Immediately after mating, the female flies away in search of prey. Embryonic development lasts 4-8 days.
After laying eggs, repeated attacks on animals are observed, and then a new batch of eggs is laid. This is called a reusable gonotrophic cycle, and can be repeated up to six times, with each subsequent laying less than the previous one.
Horsefly activity lasts from May to October. During this time, they bring the greatest harm to animals and humans among bloodsucking insects with their persistence and painful bites. As temporary external parasites, they often attack animals and people, can carry the causative agents of many dangerous diseases.
Much less frequently, horseflies attack sheep, pigs and goats, and for some reason they almost never react to dogs.
According to experiments, the most attractive for horseflies are oblong forms, light above, dark below. Horseflies sit on objects that move more often than on motionless ones. This explains the massive attack of horseflies on moving vehicles. In some species of horseflies, there is a clear craving for certain parts of the human body.
The mottled is ordinary and fenestrated, the raincoat pale more often attacks the upper part of the body, and the raincoat is ordinary, the light-eye field - on the lower. A wet body attracts horseflies 2.5 times more than a dry one, therefore horseflies attack sweaty and bathed people and animals much more often.
The nature of the attack of different types is also different - bull flies and big gray, flying up to a potential victim, make several large circles above them, and only then sit down. Medium-sized horseflies (raincoats and specks) do not make circles and attack immediately.
Before choosing a place for sucking, they make several search injections. By the way, this confirms the theory that all bloodsuckers sit on biologically active points. We will talk more about this phenomenon in an article about the most sophisticated bloodsuckers - leeches.
Attacking animals, horseflies drain them, disrupt rest and sleep, and sometimes lead to complete exhaustion and even death. As a result, grazing becomes unprofitable, livestock gain weight poorly, and milk yield decreases.
Inevitably due to constant anxiety of malnutrition, animal depletion, decreased performance are observed. Since horseflies are never bitten in the room, and rarely in the dark, during the spread, Siberians recommend grazing cattle at night and keeping them indoors during the day.
Horseflies are mechanical carriers (without any pathogen development in the carrier organism) of a number of protozoal (cattle anaplasmosis, camel trypanosomiasis, equine suu aura), viral (equine infectious anemia) and bacterial (tularemia, Siberian anemia, emphysematous carbunculiemia, hemorrhage buffaloes) diseases.
The causative agent of tularemia in a virulent state (able to infect) is stored in the saliva of horseflies 1-3 days, Siberian 5-7 days. Horseflies do not neglect even the corpses of animals in the first 2-3 days after their death.
Fast flight, endurance, the ability to pierce and cut through the strongest animal skins favor the spread of pathogens over long distances.
By setting 2-4 traps on 1 hectare of pasture, the life of grazing animals can be greatly facilitated.
For larvae, the famous "puddles of death" are arranged with an oil film, as for mosquitoes, and during the period of mass egg laying on the banks of some ponds, adhesive boards were put up, coastal vegetation was mowed, and masonry was collected.
In nature, horseflies have a lot of natural enemies. Some birds, bats, large dragonflies, wasps, spiders, and geese prey on adults. And from those who want to feast on larvae, eggs and pupae there is no end. Fishermen harvest horseflies as a good bait.
Almost all types of horseflies are drunk several times a day, regardless of whether they already sucked blood or juice. If the water is infected with a rodent sick of tularemia, horseflies will spread the pathogen to everyone they bite.
The greatest number of horseflies, both in numbers and in the number of species (up to 20 in each locality), is found in wetlands, at the borders of different ecotopes, in places of grazing. From the neighborhood of man, their number only increases.
Horseflies need coastal vegetation to develop. They find among her shelter and the necessary microclimatic conditions for life, and plants give horseflies food in the form of various juices and nectar.
Egg-laying occurs on the hottest days of June-July in the morning near water bodies on coastal vegetation. Clutches can die from direct sunlight, so the female places them on the underside of the leaves. Eggs are very resistant to high salt concentrations, even on the seashore, when splashed by water, they survive.
Meanwhile, masonry often die from flooding due to rising water levels. The eggs are cylindrical with a narrowing at the end, 1.2-1.4 mm long. In shape, the laying of eggs resembles an elongated strip with vertically, in two layers, eggs arranged.
They are glued together, they can be from 40 to 950 pieces. The eggs of one African species of horseflies are covered with an almost impenetrable cement-like shell. In the experiment, after two days in 70% alcohol (!), Larvae emerged from the eggs.
Embryonic development of eggs lasts about a week. Hatched larvae gather in lumps and fall into water or moist soil. And there they burrow into the ground - about a meter from the edge of the water, and some species directly in the ground under water.
Depending on the species, the development of larvae lasts 2-4 years (!).When the water temperature drops to + 10 ° C, they fall into the winter diapause, withstanding freezing up to –5 -12 ° C.
At this time, they are very resistant to adverse factors and poisons. Larvae molt up to 8 times. The older the larva, the deeper it is buried (up to 1 meter).
Withstand brackish water. On the surface of the soil, the larva can move at a speed of 80 cm per minute, in its thickness it is much slower. All young larvae feed on detritus - semi-decaying plant debris; adults, depending on the species, feed on either detritus or become predators.
Larvae bite just as painfully as adults, and their bites are just as toxic. The saliva of the larva cuts through the tissue of the victim, and then it sucks out its contents.
Horseflies usually pupate in the third spring. Pupae move to drier places, they often die from excessive humidity. Their length is 8-35 mm, this stage lasts from 8 to 12 days.
Adult horseflies live one season. They are heliophilic insects ("helios" - the sun, "phylos" - love). And they fly and attack in the afternoon, in the sunlight, in the hottest hours.
At night they sit in shelters, however, entomologists have found that horseflies often fall into light traps, especially on moonlit nights. They found the remains of horseflies and in the stomachs of bats.
I don’t know the explanation of this oddity and haven’t seen it in the literature, perhaps this is somehow connected with the equally inexplicable behavior of horseflies with a decrease in the light intensity.
Under the influence of diminishing lighting, a strong excitement encompasses them. In the twilight time, they begin to fly and fuss, as if they think that the last day of their life has come to an end.
Unfortunately, or maybe, fortunately, we cannot explain all the mysteries and answer many questions. In the behavior of even well-studied animals, there are always secrets that do not give rest to inquisitive minds.
As for horseflies, their “adult” life is quite ephemeral - only two to four months, while other phases of the life cycle in different species last from 1 to 4 years - a huge period for an insect.
But this is a completely different life, like the life of different animals: a different appearance, a different way of feeding, a different environment - a blue sky, underwater soil, the reverse side of a leaf near the water ... It is not for nothing that in the ancient East the reincarnations of insects from stage to stage were compared with karmic reincarnations of humans ...
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