#3932 · 🪰 flies & mosquitoes
Common European Greenbottle Fly
🇳🇱 Groene vleesvlieg ·Lucilia sericata
9 photos from iNaturalist (Creative Commons) · credits & licences
what is it?
The common green bottle fly ( Lucilia sericata ) is a blow fly found in most areas of the world, and the most well-known of the numerous green bottle fly species. It is 10–14 mm long, slightly larger than a house fly, and has brilliant, metallic, blue-green or golden coloration with black markings. It has short, sparse black bristles (setae) and three cross-grooves on the thorax. The wings are clear with light brown veins, and the legs and antennae...
base stats
Bars compare against all animals on log scales: up to 300,000 Dutch and 600,000 worldwide sightings (the most-seen species), 150 t (blue whale), 30 m and 400 years (Greenland shark).
fun facts
- Spotted 23 times in the Netherlands on iNaturalist.
- 57,621 observations worldwide on iNaturalist.
- Scientifically named by Johann Wilhelm Meigen in 1826 (200 years ago).
fact sheet
- English
- Common European Greenbottle Fly
- Nederlands
- Groene vleesvlieg
- scientific name
- Lucilia sericata
- class
- Insecta
- order
- Diptera
- family
- Calliphoridae
- sightings in NL
- 23
- sightings in Europe
- 1,226
- sightings worldwide
- 57,621
- GBIF records in NL
- 1,826
- weight
- —
- length
- —
- lifespan
- —
- named
- 1826 by Johann Wilhelm Meigen
relatives· Calliphoridae
Sources: iNaturalist taxon 128824, Wikidata Q603128, GBIF 5063973, Wikipedia (EN), Wikipedia (NL). Intro text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.