FlySpotter©

House Flies

House flies can be considerable nuisance pests as well as carriers of animal and human pathogens.  Management of house flies (Musca domestica) is an important part of any animal operation and an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program for house flies is recommended.  An effective IPM program includes a method for monitoring (measuring) changes in adult house fly activity on an animal facility. When house fly activity is low, measures to reduce house fly activity are generally limited to “maintenance measures” in preparation for the next period of increasing house fly activity.  When housefly activity is increasing, animal facility operators determine appropriate measures to reduce house fly development and adult activity at the facility.  If monitoring results indicate that adult house fly activity has exceeded a pre-determined action threshold above which nuisance or disease transmission is expected, then animal facility operators must take immediate action to reduce the number of adult flies.   Under a true IPM program, housefly mitigation measures are driven by house fly monitoring results (activity counts).

The housefly (Musca domestica) is a fly of the suborder Cyclorrhapha. It possibly originated in the Middle East, and spread around the world as a commensal of humans. Adults are gray to black, with four dark, longitudinal lines on the thorax, slightly hairy bodies, and a single pair of membranous wings. They have red compound eyes, set farther apart in the slightly larger female.. - Wikipedia

House Fly Activity

House fly activity can be monitored in many ways.  However, most methods described to date are time consuming and require some ability to identify house flies relative to other flies. Because of these limitations, house fly monitoring is not routinely performed at most animal facilities. 

FlySpotter© Software

The FlySpotter© software was developed to provide a house fly monitoring system that is simple, efficient, and reliable over time.  Since the 1970’s, “Spot cards” or 4 x 6 inch blank white index cards have been used by researchers to monitor house fly activity at animal facilities.  Spot cards (typically 10-20 cards) are placed in locations where house flies rest and leave “fly spots” (regurgitation and fecal spots).  Spot cards are replaced every 7 days, and the number of  housefly (Musca domestica) spots on each removed card is counted with the average count for all cards recorded as the fly activity count for the previous week.  Weekly activity counts are compared over time to determine if housefly activity is increasing or decreasing.  Changes in activity counts may also be used to assess the success of fly mitigation measures applied during the previous week(s).

FlySpotter© was developed to rapidly count the fly spots on each spot card for you!  Now, the weekly house fly activity count can be determined in just a few minutes. After replacing spot cards, scan these cards using a flatbed scanner to create a JPEG image file (the same way you would scan a family photo).  Load the image into the FlySpotter© program, and the software will count the housefly spots and record your data in a fraction of a second!  You can also view past activity counts or compare the current activity count to those in previous weeks, months, or years.  Activity counts can also be exported to an Excel file for additional analysis if desired.

To use FlySpotter©, download the program from and select the help tab for information on recording sampling sites and loading scanned spot card images.  If you run into any problems, please contact Dr. Alec Gerry (alec.gerry@ucr.edu) for assistance.

Please visit our page for more information and FlySpotter software download.