Botfly
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Oestridae (also called botfly or bot fly) is a family of Oestroidea. It is one of several families of hairy flies whose larvae live as parasites within the bodies of mammals, such as the Desert Woodrat.
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Lifecycle
- Adult botflies deposit eggs on a host body: common houseflies for example.
- Eggs are deposited on animal skin by their host: the body heat of the animal incudes hatching upon contact. Some forms of botfly also reside in the digestive tract when consumed by a licking action.
- Myiasis: larvae burrow into the skin (or tissue lining) of the new host animal.
- Mature larvae drop from the host and complete the pupae stage in soil.
Remedies
- If one is afflicted with bot flies, one "cure" (which is really more of a folk remedy) is to put meat over the affected area while the flies are in their larval stage. Then pull the grubs out with tweezers when they emerge to eat the meat.
- The botfly maggot cannot be removed easily whilst alive due to the spines that run along its body. One medical treatment is to suffocate the grub by sealing off the air hole found in the surrounding blister. This can be done with vasaline or similar. This forces the grub to expose itself, making it easier to remove.
Deer Botfly
The deer botfly was reported for many years to be the fastest of all flying insects, cited by the New York Times and Guinness Book of World Records as traveling at speeds of over 800 miles per hour. The source of this remarkable claim was an article by entomologist Charles H. T. Townsend in the 1927 Journal of the New York Entomological Society, wherein Townsend claimed to have estimated a speed of 400 yards per second while observing botflies at 12,000 feet in New Mexico.
In 1938, Nobel laureate chemist Irving Langmuir examined the claim in detail and refuted the estimate. Among his specific criticisms were:
- To maintain a velocity of 800 miles per hour, the 0.3-gram fly would have had to consume more than 150% of its body weight in food every second;
- The fly would have produced an audible sonic boom;
- The supersonic fly would have been invisible to the naked eye; and
- The impact trauma of such a fly colliding with a human body would resemble that of a gunshot wound.
Using the original report as a basis, Langmuir estimated the deer botfly's true speed at 25 miles per hour.
External links
- Encyclopedia.com article (http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/b1/botfly.asp)
- Personal account of human botfly infestation, with resulting case studies (http://www.vexman.com/botfly.htm)
- "Bug Attack" documentary: includes footage and description of botflies (http://www.bigwavetv.com/programs/prog_bug.html)de:Dasselfliegen