On this page
How to identify it
- The adult is about 12 to 13 mm (1/2 inch) long, with a light tan to orange body and bright red eyes, which give it its common name.[1]
- Young maggots are small and dark brown with cream-colored stripes. They develop inside mole crickets, and the dark pupae, much larger than the young maggots, are found in the soil.[1]
- Females are drawn to the calls of male mole crickets, which researchers have shown with sound devices that replicate the songs.[1][2]
Look-alikes
| Look-alike | How to tell them apart |
|---|---|
| Other tachinid flies | Tachinids include many parasitic flies. This one stands out by its tan-orange body and bright red eyes, and it attacks only mole crickets in the genus Neoscapteriscus.[1] |
Where it lives
Native to South America, first found in Brazil in the 1930s and also recorded in Honduras and Peru. In the United States it lives in Florida: UF/IFAS reports adults year-round in 28 counties and in the fall in ten more, and a 2006 USDA paper reports it established in at least 38 Florida counties.[1][2]
Biology and life cycle
It is a specialist on Neoscapteriscus mole crickets. It uses two pest species in the Southeast, the southern mole cricket and the tawny mole cricket, but not the northern mole cricket.[1]
The eggs develop and hatch inside the female. Guided by a singing male cricket's call, she deposits live maggots on the mole cricket near the base of its wings, the area that produces the song.[1][2]
The maggots tunnel into the cricket and feed inside it, then leave its body and burrow into the soil to pupate. Adults emerge about 11 days later. In the laboratory, the cycle from egg to adult took about 36 days at 23 to 25 degrees C (73 to 77 degrees F).[1]
The fly is hard to keep in laboratory colonies, partly because the number of females carrying eggs varies so much from one generation to the next.[2]
Damage and signs
- It is a beneficial insect. Pest mole crickets damage turf and pasture grasses, and the fly kills the crickets it parasitizes.[1][2]
- In 1991 and 1992 surveys, 85% of respondents in Florida counties where the fly was expected to be well established reported less turf damage from mole crickets, compared with 46% in counties where it was not. It is reducing damage from some pest mole crickets and has suppressed mole cricket populations in some counties.[1][2]
Health risk
It is a parasite of mole crickets; the sources describe no harm to people.[1][2]
Control
Prevention
No control is needed. The fly was deliberately introduced to Florida to fight pest mole crickets in lawns, golf courses and pastures.[1]
Biological control
After the fly was collected in Brazil and brought to the US in 1983, the University of Florida set up a laboratory colony and released it from 1988, placing boxes of pupae at sites in 30 Florida counties, including golf courses. A 1930s release in Puerto Rico did not establish.[1]
Common questions
- What is the orange fly with bright red eyes in my Florida yard?
- It may be the Brazilian red-eyed fly, a tan-orange fly about 1/2 inch long that parasitizes mole crickets.[1]
- Does the red-eyed fly attack all mole crickets?
- No. It attacks Neoscapteriscus mole crickets, including the southern and tawny mole crickets that damage turf, but not the northern mole cricket.[1]
Sources
- University of Florida/IFAS Extension (Featured Creatures), “Brazilian Red-Eyed Fly Ormia depleta (Wiedemann), EENY-708 (H. Ray and J. L. Gillett-Kaufman; June 2018).” journals.flvc.org/edis/article/view/106612 (accessed 2026-11-09)
- Florida Entomologist (Florida Entomological Society), “Intraspecific competition for resources by Ormia depleta (Diptera: Tachinidae) larvae (C. H. Welch, USDA-ARS; Florida Entomologist 89(4): 497-501, 2006).” journals.flvc.org/flaent/article/view/75588 (accessed 2026-11-09)
- iNaturalist, “Ormia depleta taxon page (order and family).” www.inaturalist.org/taxa/1090696 (accessed 2026-11-09)