Bottle Fly

Bottle and blowflies have only one pair of wings, short antennae, and large compound eyes. Bottle flies are often shiny, metallic, blue, green, or black, with hairlike bristles. Bottle flies range from 8-10 mm (0.3-0.4 inch) in length.

The larvae are conical-shaped maggots that are tan or whitish.

Bottle and blow flies are found near dumpsters, in/on dead animals, rotting meat or fish as they lay eggs almost always in dead or rotting flesh. They will also use animal excrement and decaying vegetable. They are mostly located in the outdoors and farm environments. Indoors, their presence is mostly associated with a dead animal such as a mouse or rat.

The life cycle of the bottle fly consists of four stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult.

Female bottle and blow flies can lay up to 2,400 eggs in their lifetime—typically 600 to 2000 in batches of 100 to 180 eggs. They lay their eggs in cavities or crevices within a dead or dying organism.

Larvae or maggots will emerge and feed on the decomposing entity before pupating after about ten days.

Most maggots in a dead animal are bottle or blowfly larvae. Outdoors, mature larvae usually leave their food source and burrow into the ground to pupate.

Larvae and pupae can survive the cold, but adults die in the winter. The development time can be as short as ten days or as long as 25 days depending on fly species and environmental factors such as temperature and humidity as well as food availability.

1. The larvae, hatching from bottle fly eggs laid on or near their food items, eat carrion or dung.
2. Some bottle fly species are parasitic and eat tissues or blood from living hosts.
3. Detectives use the predictable sequence of maggot growth to determine time of death in crimes. Surgeons sometimes use blow fly larvae to clean infected tissues in rare cases.