native to the Americas and now widespread through warm regions worldwide
Fine-art photographic collection
Hermetia illucens
A fly larva that converts rotting waste into protein, crawls out to harvest itself and can halve the mass of its food.
About this species
Black Soldier Fly
Hermetia illucens(Linnaeus, 1758)
Information reviewed15 July 2026
Hermetia illucens is the black soldier fly, now farmed worldwide for waste bioconversion. Dense larval populations consume food scraps, manure and other organic residues, turning them into protein- and fat-rich biomass.
Taxonomy
Animalia · Arthropoda · Insecta · Diptera · Stratiomyidae · Hermetia
Accepted taxon. · checked 2026-07-15
native to the Americas and now widespread through warm regions worldwideBroad range and selected reference localities — not a complete occurrence map.
Warm environments containing decaying organic matter, compost, manure or food waste.
Adults are diurnal; larvae feed continuously in dense aggregations.
Larvae consume a wide range of decomposing organic material; adults take little or no food.
Larvae aggregate densely in food, but adults are not social.
What makes this species remarkable?
A working larval colony can reduce the wet mass of organic waste by around half while converting part of it into harvestable insect protein.
When ready to pupate, the dark prepupa leaves the food and climbs away — a self-harvesting behaviour exploited by simple collection ramps.
Females lay several hundred eggs at once, yet the adult fly does not bite or sting and usually lives on reserves accumulated as a larva.
More photographs
26