Botfly larve
When I was at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, nothing fascinated me more that the wriggly maggots that were laid by flies into people’s skin.
These were called botfly larvae.
Of course, there were no live samples as this required a human host to act as an incubator … and no one was willing to put their hand up for the extra credit (even if the school kept them in insectary). In fact, the school kept them in an alcohol solution. We gathered around various tables and peered curiously into the glass vial with a white lid top and a handwritten label that was worn away from the years of oily hands, which helped obscure the specimen even further.
We turned the vial side-to-side until we finally glimpsed this strange white blob. It was tapered at the bottom, while gradually going up in striations, with black spike-like dots to form an armour that helped anchor them into the meaty flesh of their host. At the top there were two little fangs at the bottom.
The adults are actually adorable looking yellow and black fluffy flies with these large round eyes. Look at the cuteness, it should be a teddy bear!
Cephenemyia stimulator, Deer Botfly, Oestridae. Italia, Dolomites, Val Gardena, summit of the Pic mountain (2363 m a.s.l). Image credit: Karsten Heinrich (& G. Kothe-Heinrich) - Own work. CC BY 3.0
The larvae, however, were these disgusting larvae that burrowed into your body to grow. Often they appear like an irritated boil. Many medical cases have been of these horrendous larvae attaching to unsuspecting travellers.