
	Identification Scientific Name: Calliphora vicina, Calliphora vomitaria Common Names: Blowflies, bluebottle flies Classification Class: Insecta Order: Diptera Family: Calliphoridae Genus: Calliphora Species: vicina, vomitaria

Habitat
Like most other fly families, blowflies occur worldwide.

Profile
Very similar to the common housefly (Musca domestica), blowflies appear a metallic green or blue and are easily recognizable.

Blowflies are detritivore, even necrophagous, because they feed on dead animals. They deposit their eggs on this nutritious substrate, much to the delight of the resulting larvae.

By ridding the environment of cadavers and making dead tissues bioavailable, blowflies play an important ecological role.

Adult blowflies sometimes carry diseases. Notably when they alternately feed on decomposing tissue and foods consumed by humans, and thus carry pathogens from one contaminated site to another.

The large blue blowflies (or bluebottle flies) in the Calliphoridae family are called " brummer " in German, which means " hummer " for the sound they produce by rapidly beating their wings. Most dipterans are well-known for the speed at which they are able to beat their wings.

The presence of blowflies, at a particular stage of their life cycle, on a corpse provides forensics entomologists with valuable clues as to the time of death of the individual.

" Disgusting! " is a word that might spring to mind at the thought of a mass of wriggling larvae feasting on decaying flesh. And yet maggots can be a godsend to people whose wounds refuse to heal. On a human wound, much as they do on dead animals, blowfly larvae consume necrotic tissue and even excrete a substance that sterilizes the tissues and cleanses the wound.