Anthrax is a disease of human beings and animals caused by the encapsulated, spore-forming, Bacillus anthracis. The potential role of insects in the spread of B. anthracis to humans and domestic animals during an anthrax outbreak has been confirmed by many studies. Among insect vectors, the house fly Musca domestica is considered a potential agent for disease transmission. In this study, labora...

Absorption spectra of visual screening pigments obtained in vitro with a microspectrophotometer using frozen sections are given for the insects Musca domestica, Phormia regina, Libellula luctuosa, Apis mellifera (worker honeybee only), Drosophila melanogaster (wild type only) and the arachnids Lycosa baltimoriana and Lycosa miami. The spectral range covered is 260-700 nm for Lycosa and Drosophi...

Multidrug-resistant (MDR) Acinetobacter baumannii infections are difficult to treat owing to the extremely limited armamentarium. Expectations about antimicrobial peptides' use as new powerful antibacterial agents have been raised on the basis of their unique mechanism of action. Musca domestica cecropin (Mdc), a novel antimicrobial peptide from the larvae of Housefly (Musca domestica), has pot...

Nesticodes rufipes is widely distributed in tropical and subtropical regions, being strongly associated with humans. However, few behavioral and ecological studies have investigated interspecific interactions between these spiders and insects of medical and veterinary importance. Here, we have investigated prey choice by N. rufipes when two different prey species, Musca domestica and Dermestes ...

A key to 23 species of Neotropical Lucilia, including six new species is given. Information is provided on all known Lucilia species found in the region, including the West Indies, Galápagos Islands, and Central and South America. The following six new species are described based on the examination of over 2700 adult specimens from Central and South America: Lucilia albofusca sp. nov. from sout...

The absorption of a photon by a photoreceptor triggers a small voltage fluctuation termed the 'bump'. Here, in the housefly, I introduce the bispectrum of photoreceptor noise to characterise the bump under dim light. The bispectrum provides explicit phase information and is not contaminated by Gaussian background noise. Over the photon rates examined (<10(4) s(-1)), I show that bumps are minimu...

In the housefly, Musca domestica L., sex is usually determined by a dominant factor, M, located on the Y chromosome. However, there are 'autosomal male' (AM) populations in which the M factor is located on one or more of the five autosomes (I-V) or on X. We examined changes in the frequency of AM and YM males in North Carolina populations of houseflies after 4 years in the laboratory (NC Lab 02...