Random thought: where did drain flies live before there were drains?
So drain flies. They live in your drain. But what is their habitat outside of houses? What habitat is best mimicked by drains? It's a good
bogleech answered this already, coincidentally! I have had drain flies of various species including the household Clogmia albipunctata (haha. Clogmia) develop in containers where I macerate animal bones or dead leaves.
as often the case with household animals, there’s usually a lot more elsewhere that people don’t come into contact with and don’t realize exist! I believe there’s over 2,500 species in the family Psychodidae. one group of the drain flies are known as sandflies, and the subfamily name—Phlebotominae—hints at the fact that they’re hemtophagous (blood drinking) like mosquitoes! they’re the vectors of a few tropical diseases like leishmaniasis.
anyway, like cockroaches, house centipedes, silverfish, and pigeons among others, drain flies are an example of where the rare one or two synanthropic species become the most familiar to humans to the point of being synonymous with the larger group, even if they’re fairly unique among them
