A survey of the flies breeding in poultry manure, and their potential natural enemies

The identity and relative abundance of the flies breeding in manure accumulations below caged hens in poultry houses was established at several sites in the Eastern Cape [South Africa] by regular sampling over a period of 5 mo. These flies included Musca domestica Linnaeus, Fannia leucosticta (Meigen), a species of Leptocera, Sepsis lateralis Wiedemann, species of Cecidomyiidae, 2 Desmometopa spp., a Sphaerocera species, a species of the Eristalini, Chrysomya putoria (Wiedemann), Stomoxys calcitrans (Linnaeus), Muscina stabulans (Fallen), Rhinia apicalis (Wiedemann), F. albitarsus Stein and Ophyra capensis (Wiedemann). House flies breeding in the manure are predominantly M. domestica calleva Walker, the typically outdoor subspecies. The regularly-occurring non-dipteran component of the manure fauna was a pseudoscorpion; a spider; mites, including Macrocheles muscaedomesticae (Scopoli); several beetles, among them 2 spp. of Atholus, 1 of Philonthus sp., Dermestes maculatus De Geer and Alphitobius diaperinus (Panzer); 2 moths, Monopis sp. and Pyralis farinalis Linnaeus; the predatory ants Dorylus helvolus (Linnaeus) and Pheidole sp. and 2 hymenopteran parasitoids, Spalangia endius Walker and Muscidifurax raptor Girault and Saunders.