#bot fly

pet fly pros: fuzzy

Bee-Mimic Bot Fly - Cuterebra abdominalis

With this post, we are revisiting squeamish territory, but the aim is to have this post's information not be very graphic. The lifecycle of this insect is not one I think on very fondly, but this is how Oestridae evolved to survive and multiply successfully. It's a bit out of the ordinary, but nature is like that sometimes, and as such I strongly believe its important to know what such insects look like and to learn about them. In addition, since it's not very likely that I'll find another Dipteran specimen like this one again, its all the more important to showcase the remaining images of such an unusual insect. However, It's not that I don't plan to find one again, but rather that the adults tend to be short-lived (a few weeks at most), and on the whole they can be quite rare to spot. As such, consider it your lucky day if you happen to find an adult Bot Fly buzzing around your garden (and keep your pets away from it). To quickly summarize from the previous post of this elusive insect:

The adult Bot Fly itself is harmless (even lacking mouthparts), but its larvae can be notorious pests which afflict their particular mammalian host with an infestation known as myiasis/flystrike

The maggots of this specie - Cuterebra abdominalis - prefer rabbits as their host animal. The Fly itself really doesn't seem to have any environmental stipulations beyond the presence of rabbits

The adult Fly only exists to mate and then lay eggs near a den where the hatchlings can easily make their way to their host and parasitize it until maturity

The rotund, fuzzy appearance and smooth, shiny abdomen of this Fly occasionally causes it to be mistaken for a Carpenter Bee. Of course, it has Fly-eyes (sometimes with red spots) and 2 wings

While "in contact" with their host, the Bot Fly larvae of this specie will infest until of suitable size, upon which they will go and pupate in the soil. Infested host animals may have a lumpy appearance at the site of their infestation with a prominent hole. This is both the maggot's rear and its breathing hole. In the wild, there's not much that the host animal can do if such an infestation occurs aside from remain strong and as healthy as possible. Doing this will give the host a good chance of a full recovery once the larvae exit, for while it's rare that the infestation will prove fatal to the host (it's in the maggots' best interest to keep a living host), issues arise from potential secondary infections at the infestation sites due to harmful bacteria. As visceral as this life cycle is, it admittedly may be of some ecological use in population control given how fast rabbits can multiply, but it still feels slightly unsettling to me. Of course, if the adult Bot Fly can't find a suitable host, there's very little it can do other than fly around and search until it collapses from exhaustion. On the subject of its wings, you may have noticed certain protrusions at the back of this specie's thoracic fluff which point upwards. Those flattened points appear to be its distal calipers: hinged flaps which have functions related to the wings. Other Fly species have them as well, but the size of this Bot Fly allows for a good visualization. For C. abdominalis, these flaps allow their wings to fold back and be held at rest over their abdomen. They also possess a proximal (lower) caliper which seems to cover this Fly's halteres (flight stabilizers). Admittedly, I didn't pay enough attention to the flight ability of this individual so there's little more I can provide in terms of commentary.