Black Soldier Fly

• The adult has no functional mouthparts: it does not eat, does not bite and transmits no disease, and lives barely a week on the reserves it built up as a larva.
• Its larvae turn food waste into protein and fat with unrivalled efficiency, and the European Union authorises their meal in feed for aquaculture, poultry and pigs.
• Its presence in a composter drives out houseflies, because the larvae alter the substrate and make it inhospitable to them.
• The adult does not feed: it lives off the reserves it built up as a larva and does nothing but breed, which is why it is not a disease vector and does not come into houses as other flies do.
• The larva converts organic waste into biomass with extraordinary efficiency: it cuts the volume of the waste by up to 85% and can contain 50% protein and 35% fat by dry weight, with an amino acid profile close to that of fishmeal.
• It is farmed industrially on food waste, manure and agricultural by-products to produce animal feed, biodiesel and chitin.
• The residue it leaves behind, known as frass, serves as a soil amendment.
• Mind the substrate: larvae raised on sewage sludge accumulate cadmium and lead above the legal limits for animal feed.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - chitin exoskeleton (insect)

Habitat and environment

Decomposing organic matter in warm and temperate climates worldwide

Size at birth

Egg of about 1 mm

Sexual maturity

Pre-oviposition period of 7 to 14 days after emergence

Gestation / incubation

The eggs hatch in about 4 days (4.36 ± 0.24); the full cycle from egg to adult takes about 45 days under optimal conditions

Litter / clutch size

320 to 800 eggs per female; an average of about 537 eggs per clutch

Sources consulted: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermetia_illucens; ScienceDirect (tablas de vida de H. illucens, Dortmans et al. 2017 / Sharma et al. 2015); estudio de Bangladesh; Estudio de ciclo biologico en laboratorio (Bangladesh); revision de fases de desarrollo; Estudio de ciclo biologico en laboratorio (Bangladesh), H. illucens; Frontiers/NCBI PMC6272031, rendimiento de H. illucens; NCBI PMC9966864, suplementacion en adultos de H. illucens; Revision de fases de desarrollo de H. illucens