Flies are an important part of the environmental food chain. Just because you don't eat them doesn't mean that birds, animals, and other insects don't!
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 Dr. Entomology Suggests:
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There are more known flies than vertebrates. These insects are a major component of virtually all non-marine ecosystems.
Only the cold arctic and antarctic ice caps are without Flies.
The economic importance of the group is immense. One need only consider the ability of flies to transmit diseases. Black flies, and mosquitoes, are responsible for more human suffering and death than any other group of organisms except for the transmitted pathogens and man! Flies also destroy our food, especially grains and fruits. On the positive side of the ledger, outside their obviously essential roles in maintaining our ecosystem, flies are of little direct benefit to man. Some are important as experimental animals (Drosophila) and biological control agents of weeds and other insects. Flies are also an important food source for other animals, such as fish.
Some 120,000 different kinds of flies are now known and estimates are that there may be more than 1,000,000 species living today. These species are classified into 188 families and some 10,000 genera. Of these, some 3,125 species are known only from fossils, the oldest of which, a limoniid crane fly, is some 225 million years old (Upper Triassic, Carnian).
The common housefly could better be named the "Human Fly." Studies show that these flies prefer people to food or other attractants.
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Arthropoda |
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Insecta
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Diptera
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Various
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Various
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Various
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Distribution • (in blue)
Except for the polar regions, flies are found throughout the world.
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