Black soldier fly
Hermetia illucens, the black soldier fly, is a common and widespread fly of the family Stratiomyidae. Since the late 20th century, H. illucens has increasingly been gaining attention because of its usefulness for recycling organic waste and generating animal feed.
BSFL were developed as a feeder insect for exotic pets by D. Craig Sheppard, who named the larvae Phoenix Worms and began marketing them as pet food. In 2006, Phoenix Worms became the first feeder insect to be granted a U.S. registered trademark. Other companies also market BSFL under such brand names as NutriGrubs, Soldier Grubs, Reptiworms, Calciworms, BIOgrubs, and Obie's Worms (Canada). In Africa, they are marketed as live feeder, meal and oil by ProtiCycle for animal feed, pet food for dogs and cats, and food for fish such as tilapia and catfish.
Di
DiurnalDiurnal animals are active during the daytime, with a period of sleeping or other inactivity at night. The timing of activity by an animal depends ...
Co
CosmopolitanAnimals with cosmopolitan distribution are those whose range extends across all or most of the world in appropriate habitats. Another aspect of cos...
Te
TerrestrialTerrestrial animals are animals that live predominantly or entirely on land (e.g., cats, ants, snails), as compared with aquatic animals, which liv...
Ov
OviparousOviparous animals are female animals that lay their eggs, with little or no other embryonic development within the mother. This is the reproductive...
H
starts withThe adults of H. illucens measure about.mw-parser-output.frac{white-space:nowrap}.mw-parser-output.frac.num,.mw-parser-output.frac.den{font-size:80%;line-height:0;vertical-align:super}.mw-parser-output.frac.den{vertical-align:sub}.mw-parser-output.sr-only{border:0;clip:rect(0,0,0,0);clip-path:polygon(0px 0px,0px 0px,0px 0px);height:1px;margin:-1px;overflow:hidden;padding:0;position:absolute;width:1px}16 millimetres (5⁄8 in) long. These medium-sized flies have a predominantly black body, with metallic reflections ranging from blue to green on the thorax and sometimes with a reddish end of the abdomen. The second abdominal tergite has translucent areas, from which the Latin specific epithet derives. The head is wide, with very developed eyes. The antennae are about twice the length of the head. The legs are black with whitish tarsi. The wings are membranous; at rest, they are folded horizontally on the abdomen and overlapped.
H. illucens is a mimic fly, very close in size, color, and appearance to the organ pipe mud dauber wasp and its relatives. The mimicry of this particular kind of wasp is especially enhanced in that the fly's antennae are elongated and wasp-like, the fly's hind tarsi are pale, as are the wasp's, and the fly has two small, transparent "windows" in the basal abdominal segments that make the fly appear to have a narrow "wasp waist". Black soldier fly larvae can be differentiated from blowfly or housefly larvae by a thin gray-black stripe on their posterior ends.
This species is native to the Neotropical realm, but in recent decades has spread across all continents, becoming virtually cosmopolitan. It is present in most of North America and Europe, including the Iberian Peninsula, southern France, Italy, Croatia, Malta, the Canary Islands, and Switzerland, and on the Black Sea coast of Russia in the Krasnodar Territory. It can also be found in the Afrotropical realm, the Australasian realm, the east Palaearctic realm, the Nearctic realm, North Africa, Southern Africa, and the Indomalayan realm.
An adult female lays approximately 200 to 600 eggs at a time. These eggs are typically deposited in crevices or on surfaces above or adjacent to decaying matter such as manure or compost, and hatch in about 4 days. Freshly emerged larvae are 1.0 millimetre (0.04 in) long, being able to reach a length of 25 millimetres (1 in) and weight of 0.10 to 0.22 grams (1.5 to 3.4 gr) by the end of larval stage. The larvae are able to feed on a wide variety of organic matter, adapting to diets with different nutrient content. The larval stage lasts from 18 to 36 days, depending on the food substrates provided to the larvae, of which the postfeeding (prepupal) stage lasts around 7 days. The length of larval stage can be delayed by months due to low temperature or lack of food. The pupal stage lasts from 1 to 2 weeks. Adults can live typically 47 to 73 days when provided with water and food, such as sugar in captivity or nectar in the wild, or survive for about 8 to 10 days on fat reserves gathered during larval stage when water is provided.
The larvae and adults are considered neither pests nor vectors. Instead, black soldier fly larvae play a role similar to that of redworms as essential decomposers in breaking down organic substrates and returning nutrients to the soil. The larvae have voracious appetites and can be used for composting household food scraps and agricultural waste products.
Additionally, black soldier fly larvae are an alternative source of protein for aquaculture, animal feed, and pet food.
The larvae are produced and processed in industrial-scale insect factories globally by biotechnology companies such as InnovaFeed and Protix, the latter operating the world's largest insect factory farm in the Netherlands.
