A Life Table for the Common House Fly, Musca domestica

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Abstract
A study was made of the day-to-day survival of over 8500 males and females from a long-inbred (NAIDM) strain of the common house fly, reared and maintained under controlled standard laboratory conditions of artificial diet and of constant temperature, humidity and lighting conditions. Mean length of life for males remained consistent at about 17 days; for females at about 29 days, for 10 generations of study. Similarly, 50% mortality occurred at 16 days for males and at 30 days for females, both for an initial study involving 600 flies of each sex as well as for a total of over 4000 of each sex. Survivorship curves for both sexes had a typical, modified rectangular character, with a low mortality rate both at the beginning and at the latter part of the population''s existence, and with a definite middle period of accelerating mortality which can be characterized as "senescence". Life tables, survival curves and probit-log time curves all indicate that the survival of male house flies is governed by a relatively simple, if not single, longevity (or mortality) factor from the 10th to the 40th day of adult life. This corresponds to a period of population existence from 94% survival down to 1% survival. Female survival (or mortality) on the contrary, shows a more complex course; the data clearly indicate that there is a gradual increase in the number of factors operating against survival, beginning with the 10th day and reaching a maximum begining with the 40th day of population existence. Although the male factor for longevity (or mortality) was unaffected by alteration in diet, a (powdered) milk-free diet of cane sugar and water enhanced the forces of mortality for female flies, but only beginning with the 14th day of the population existence. Such effects of limited diet upon female mortality become increasingly effective with population age.

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