Trickling filter fly
The trickling filter fly is a tiny, fuzzy fly that you might spot in a bathroom near the drain. Its broad grey wings are covered in little hairy tufts, so it looks like a tiny moth. It is not a strong flier and mostly runs or hops about.
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Fun facts
Its larvae help clean dirty water. At sewage works, water trickles over stones covered in tiny living things, and the fly larvae are part of this cleaning team.
A female can lay up to 100 eggs, often in sticky little bundles.
The eggs hatch in about two days, and the larva grows up in about 15 days.
The males only live a few days, and the females about a week.
The grown-up flies hardly ever go far from the place where they hatched.
Most asked questions about Trickling filter fly
?Where do drain flies come from?
Their larvae grow up in the slimy ooze inside drains and sewage pipes.
?Are drain flies dangerous?
No. They do not bite or sting. They are only a nuisance.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Psychoda alternata
- Group
- Flies and mosquitoes
- Family
- Psychodidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Diptera > Psychodidae
- Lives on
- North America, Europe, Asia, South America
- Also known as
- Drain fly
Where the facts come from
- Psychoda alternata (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 Victor Engel. 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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