Quantitative relationship between ingested blood and follicular growth in the stable fly, <i>Stomoxys calcitrant</i>

Abstract

Female stable flies, Stomoxys calcitrans (L.), fed blood at 24-h intervals, required five blood meals to produce their first batch of eggs. The first three blood meals mainly promoted growth of the adult fat body but the latter two meals resulted in rapid ovarian growth accompanied by a decline in fat body weight. Thus, the lack of gonotrophic concordance in these flies can probably be attributed to a shortage of reserves carried over from the larval stage. Ovariectomy at emergence resulted in hypertrophy of the adult fat body in blood-fed females, indicating that the ovary regulates the flow of nutrients from the fat body during vitellogenesis.