Flies and Fly Swatters

These are the four distinct stages in an average house fly's life:
Egg: Depending on the size of a female house fly, she can lay up to 500 eggs in a three to four day period. Eggs are white in color and are usually less than half and inch in size.
Larvae: Larvae are commonly referred to as maggots. Maggots emerge from the eggs within eight to 20 hours of being laid. Larvae begin eating whatever they can find in the area they were laid. They prefer warm, moist environments to grow in.
Pupa: After about four to 10 days, a maggot will move to higher, drier ground to move into the pupa stage of its life. This process take about three to six days and is where the maggot encases inself in a reddish-brown skin where the final stages of development take place.
Adult: Once the adult house fly hatches from the pupal stage, it has an approximate life span of 15 to 30 days. Females are able to start producing eggs after two days of life and will continue to lay eggs for about a month. Female house flys are usually larger than the males.

One reasons a Fly, whether on the wing or at rest, is so hard to hit is the nature of its eyes. Humans have two lenses - one in each eye, the Housefly has eight thousand lenses - four thousand in each eye. Bulging outward from the sides of its head, the thousands of six-sided lenses fit together like honeycomb cells, and provide wide-angle vision unknown to humans; because the Fly has no eyelids it sleeps with its eyes open.