Tachinid Flies

Eastern Washington

Tachinid Fly - genus Cylindromyia

Tachinid Fly - genus Gymnosoma

Repetitive Tachinid Fly - genus Peleteria

Tachinid flies act as a natural check to many plant-feeding insects, which could otherwise do great damage agricultural crops. Tachinid flies seek out plant bugs, cutworms, loopers, cabbageworms, armyworms, among an extensive menu of plant-attacking beetles and bugs to lay eggs on as food sources for their maggots. The economic benefit provided to agriculture by tachinid flies is tough to estimate but certainly enormous.

Adult tachinid flies live on nectar from summer flowers such as buckwheat and rabbitbrush; thus, these plants support the highly targeted egg-laying of these beneficial insects.

Bembix sand wasps hunt tachinid flies among other fly families, to host their larvae.

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