Flies

Several species of Diptera are known by this name. The commonest is Musca domestica, a troublesome insect that lives mainly in and around dwellings, but whose larvae are found in dunghills and wherever there is manure. The blowfly (Calliphora erythrocephala) is also common, and the greenbottles (Lucilia Caesar and L. sericata) appear on trees, on human and animal excrement, etc. It is a fly of the genus Hypoderma that, by laying its eggs under the skin of cattle, causes through its larvae the tumours seen fairly often in these animals; the larvae are known in Madeira and Porto Santo (‘holy harbour’) as berros.