Someone told me recently that March flies are not named for the month they appear in. I thought this was too coincidental, so have spent the last few hours researching March flies, which means you the reader shall now hear about them as well.

Their common name comes from the Northern hemisphere when they come out in spring, i.e. March. In the Southern hemisphere, particularly in Margaret River on the Western coast, it is just a coincidence that the weather in March is the fly’s perfect breeding temperature. So, a happy piece of serendipity that March flies, don’t come out in September, which would result in naming confusion.

If a mosquito and a hover fly fell in love and managed to successfully battle out of their Romeo and Juliette family situations, March flies would be their progeny.

They are big and slow, with stripes of brown and yellow in subtle tones that make them spectacular but only when you pay a bit of attention instead of swatting them off as they sink their mandibles into your calf. They have brilliant green eyes like a chemical spill on water. They polarise light so things that reflect UV like water and flowers and clothing in bright, solid colours attract them. Insect repellent means nothing to them at all.

thanks for the image https://live.staticflickr.com/4748/38953080714_ee50a5d95b_b.jpg

Like mosquitos it is the female March fly that must feed on blood for protein to produce eggs. The men are content on nectar. Unlike mosquitos, March fly larvae also bites, I assume both male and female. I have yet to find any larvae to qualify this information for myself, but as the females often bury their eggs in the sand, maybe I have found the larvae and just not been able to work out what is biting me at the beach. Wrongly accusing sea mites.

In Australia, they belong to the Tabanidae family of flies - horse, deer, march – basically flies that bite. All the information I’ve read on them says they are fast and alert, but the ones in Margaret River are sneaky and slow., they’ve caught the west coast vibes. They do not have the blow fly’s speed, or sixth sense for avoiding the swat.

At a BBQ recently, I killed a march fly and two more appeared, I killed the two more, and another four appeared. And they seemed to come with a rage unexpressed by that first single fly. Was that rage imagined? Possibly, but the number of them wasn’t. The next day, when bothered by a March fly, I shooed it away. The single fly stuck around a while but left when it couldn’t get past the stripes I was wearing. That was it, no other fly appeared. It could be luck or coincidence. Either way I haven’t killed another one since.

From my own experience I conclude it is better to swat them into unconsciousness rather than kill them. Which is just as well, as they it takes a bit to really kill them, but stunning them is simple. I have been searching etymological papers to understand why the killing might attracts more flies, or indeed if it is just an imagined observation. I have found no studies or academic comment on this phenomenon, but anecdotally there is a brilliant theory.

When you kill a March fly it releases the pheromone it uses for mating, this, attracts more flies, thereby exacerbating your (human) issues of being bitten. Where this theory falls down, is that it is only the females that bite, so why would more females be attracted to the pheromone release? Do they think there will be a pool of male flies on the way? Or is the scent released not one for mating, but one of fear and death and the female flies come in sisterly solidarity? When one is attacked, do the others react in defensive and offence behaviours, instinctively understanding that an attack on one rarely affects in isolation.