LONGEVITY OF BLACK FLIES IN CAPTIVITY

Abstract

Adult female black flies were maintained in captivity for as long as 63 days, 34 living for at least 20 days. The flies were kept in longevity tubes in an unhealed room during the spring and summer, and survived longest when sugar was provided as granules and water by a wick. Flies of undetermined age, netted away from the stream, outlived those that emerged one day before the experiment. Females lived longer than males. Flies that partook of a partial blood meal were more viable than those that partook of a full meal. Flies that fed on ducks highly infected with the blood parasite, Leucocytozoon, were less viable than those fed on uninfected ducks, but in most cases flies, collected in the woods, that were not made to feed on ducks outlived those that fed on ducks. On the average, mortality increased during warm weather and decreased during cooler weather.