Marsh greenbottle fly
The marsh greenbottle fly is a shiny, metal green fly. It looks very much like many other green flies, so it is hard to tell apart. It loves warm weather and can smell dead animals from far away.
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Fun facts
Its eggs hatch in only about one day, which is very quick for a fly.
A maggot starts about 2 millimetres long and grows to about 17 millimetres.
It is also called the toad fly, because its maggots can live inside frogs and toads, which is very bad for them.
In North America it is often the first fly to arrive at a dead animal, so scientists can use its maggots like a clock to tell how long ago the animal died.
Most asked questions about Marsh greenbottle fly
?What does the marsh greenbottle fly eat?
Its maggots eat dead animals, and the grown-up flies sip nectar and sweet juices.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Lucilia silvarum
- Named by
- Meigen, 1826
- Group
- Flies and mosquitoes
- Family
- Calliphoridae
- Classification
- Insecta > Diptera > Calliphoridae
- Lives on
- Europe, Africa, Asia, North America
- Also known as
- Common toad fly
Where the facts come from
- Lucilia silvarum (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by AfroBrazilian. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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