Examining house fly (Musca domestica) dispersal preferences

House flies have been shown to be capable of vectoring a multitude of disease causing organisms, such as, Campylobacter jejuni, Entamoeba histolytica, Salmonella typhimurium, and enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7. Because of a house flies potential to disseminate these organisms into surrounding residential and commercial neighborhoods a better understanding of their flight behavior is important not only for surveillance, but for implementing control techniques. In order to quantify the vertical distribution of house flies in midflight, a vertical, flight intercept trap was developed and employed. House flies were captured at six different locations in and around an active dairy. Two locations off of the main dairy facility showed significant variation in the mean height flies choose to fly at. Over a fully grown alfalfa field the mean height of captured flies was above the median of the trap, while flies captured along the edge of the alfalfa field were median of the trap. The other four had mean heights equal to the median of the trap height, indicating that flies were commonly moving at altitudes above the top of these traps.