Australian Aboriginal Fly

Flies have thrived in Australia for millions of years although there’s uncertainty about how they got here and whether or not they tried to leave having seen the place.

What’s clearer is that Australian indigenous flies have been as successful at surviving in the various antipodean regions and climates as have the continent’s original human inhabitants.

In fact, since white settlement, Australian Aboriginal flies have fared rather better than the human Aborigines.

Aussie flies such as the housefly (Musca domestica), the blowfly (Metallea sp) and the bush fly (Dichaetomyia sp) have thrived in the dung of countless millions of introduced cows, sheep and domestic pets.

And while the first Australian humans have found integrating into the uninvited society’s way of life as challenging as accommodating the imported attitudes and approaches, unthinking flies have simply seen opportunities.

And taken them.

For most white Australians, flies are little more than an enduring nuisance and a quirky national symbol of which we’re perversely proud.

But for the indigenous population the fly has come to represent the worst consequences of the white invasion, in the late 1700s.

Wherever there are malnourished indigenous Australians living in third-world conditions, there are flies.

Wherever the incidence of trachoma (Chlamidia Trachomatis), a major cause of Aboriginal morbidity is high, there are bush flies responsible for the disturbing rates of cross-infection.

And wherever there is decaying rubbish, around excrement and a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet, you’ll find flies benefiting from the now endemic misfortune of the dispossessed Australians.