For the Love of Flies: The Unsung Heroes of the Insect World

Flies are amazing insects that play critical roles in our environment including pollination, waste disposal, pest control, and as a link in the food web. Flies are greatly diverse in colors, shape, size, and where they live. Butterflies and bees probably generate more enthusiasm, but it’s time to change that. To talk about flies with us, we are joined by Dr. Erica McAlister, who works at the Natural History Museum in London, where she is the principal curator for Diptera and Siphonaptera, i.e., flies and fleas. Erica takes a particular interest in three groups of flies, fungus gnats, assassin flies, and mosquitoes. The latter means that inevitably she is involved with many projects related to identification of mosquitoes and which ones are associated with spread of malaria and other diseases and viruses, but her experience is much broader, including teaching entomology in Dominica and studying the invertebrates — more specifically, the flies — of that island. Finally, Erica is also the award-winning author of four books, including The Secret Life of Flies and The Inside Out of Flies.---Cover Photo: Whitney Cranshaw - Bugwood CC - Tachinid fly (Trichopoda pennipes) Thank you for listening! For more information go to xerces.org/bugbanter.