Mystery of the Night Flies

When I finally figured out that fast flying bats were causing blank video clips, I started to pay more attention to the insects in my videos.

Soon I noticed that swarms of small flies often showed up when an animal passed the camera.

I wondered if the hungry swarms ever give the critters any peace.

On the other hand, maybe the swarms aren't parasitic insects.

Maybe animals just stir resting flies into motion when they walk by.

I compiled some clips to show you what I mean.

And since I couldn't make any sense of it, I wrote to entomologist Bunyipco (an old friend) for an answer.

He didn't have an answer, and responded as expected of a taxonomist -- "Catch some specimens for identification".

"And how do I do that, may I ask?"

"Simple, hang some fly paper where you see the swarms".

If I post any pictures of bears donning fly paper next year, you'll know what happened.

Bambi is cute fly bait

Cute, isn't it?

Well, the codger's reaction is less adoration than amusement tinged with cynicism.

Here the log-perching Bambi is displaying the heart-warming curiosity of juvenile deer, a fetching trait that renders it highly attractive as fly bait. In fact, a number of mammals are known to be more vulnerable to parasitic fly infestation as juveniles than as adults.

Entomologist John R. Anderson wrote a fascinating paper about the infestation tactics of nose bot flies that parasitize black-tailed deer. (Unfortunately, I can no longer find the paper among 3000 uncatalogued reprints in the garage, so I am jogging my memory and give you the reference below).

You see deer and cattle share a very long history of relations with various species of bot flies that detect their hosts by very general (e.g. CO2 and urine) and very specific chemical signatures, such as volatile compounds from scent glands.

Out here in the west, two species of nose bot flies infest our black-tailed deer. How they zero in on their hosts isn't well known, but Anderson spent a lot of time watching parasitic flies dupe deer.

One species (Cephenemyia apicata), he found, takes advantage of the deer's curiosity.

The gravid fly chooses a bush in plain view of Bambi, and then buzzes about in a come-hither-come-yon dance. Bambi approaches to inspect this curious thing, and is rewarded with a tiny fly larva squirted onto it's moist muzzle. If the deer doesn't lick and swallow it, the larva wriggles into the nostrils.

Cephenemyia jellisoni, the other species, is a stealth hunter. It approaches the deer out-of-sight and from behind, and slowly moves forward beneath the soft underbelly. Then it quietly hovers into position under the animal's throat and muzzle, taking care to remain undetected by tracking the animal's head movements. When the time is right it dashes into position and squirts its larva ('larvaposits') on the moist lips or muzzle. Numerous females may attack a single deer.

The larvae settle in the pharyngeal pouches at the back of the throat, where they feed on tissue secretions and grow into beautiful bots. (I'm kidding of course.)

I still recall my revulsion the first time I saw nasal bots in the throat of a necropsied deer. We were having a wonderful time being young biologists, measuring testes, preserving uteri, while eating curried venison and drinking beer.

When we started to pull mandibles for aging, there they were at the back of the throat: a writhing mass of inch-long white maggots. We gagged and came close to tossing our cookies, but we were tough.

So I don't turn up my nose to insects. They are here to stay, and when nature pits Bambi against flies there's just not much of a contest.


References:

Anderson JR. 1975. The behavior of nose bot flies (Cephenemyia apicata and C. jellisoni) when attacking black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus) and the resulting reactions of the deer. Can J Zool., 53(7):977-92.

Anderson, JR. and & W Olkowski. 1968. Carbon Dioxide as an Attractant for Host-seeking Cephenemyia Females (Diptera: Oestridae). Nature, 220:190-191

Cogley, TP. 1987. Effects of Cephenemyia spp. (Diptera: Oestridae) on the nasopharynx of black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus). Journal of Wildlife Diseases, 23(4):596-605

Olroyd, H. 1964. The natural history of flies. Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London

Tømmerås, BÅ., A. Wibe, AC. Nilssen, and JR Anderson. 1993. The olfactory response of the reindeer nose bot fly, Cephenemyia trompe (Oestridae), to components from interdigital pheromone gland and urine from the host reindeer, Rangifer tarandus. Chemoecology 4(2):115-119

Got you under my skin

Notice anything unusual about this squirrel?

Yeah, I've noticed that it's a male too, but that's not unusual. (Arrow "x" is there only for reference.)

What I'm talking about is the dark thing hanging down from the squirrel's belly? Can you see it? Look again below the scrotum. Arrow "y" points to it.

The luckless rodent seems to be carrying an alien from the underworld of the Arthropoda. What you probably see is a repugnant swelling with an oozing sore, a warble. It's the domicile of a bot, the parasitic larva of the bot fly.

As flies go, bot flies are rather pleasing. They are hairy, somewhat blocky in build, and resemble bees. They have small or vestigial mouthparts. The raison d'etre of their brief adult existence is reproduction, and during their quiet interlude under the skin of squirrels they accumulate the energy stores needed to go forth and procreate.



There are 34 species of the bot fly genus Cuterebra in the US, and their larvae, the bots, must feed on small mammals, mainly rodents and rabbits in order to reach maturity. Each species of Cuterebra has its preferred host. In other words, gophers, wood rats, white-footed mice, and squirrels have their own dedicated species of bot fly, but they are not totally loyal to one host. Occasionally they meet up with the wrong host. Forty species of insects, including bot flies have been known to "accidentally" parasitize people in the US.

Finding a bot on your own body or in something you intend to eat is not a pleasant experience. In the southern US, only 2% of squirrel hunters were reported to eat bot-infected squirrels. The rest of them got really turned off. So a lot of hunted squirrels cycle back into the food chain without benefit of human digestion.

The fly bot is the closest thing to the slimy xenomorph (read Alien) from Planet LV-426 that exploded from the chests of its human hosts. Surely you remember Sigourney Weaver and aliens that got scarier with each new movie.

The difference of course is that aliens are fictional. True, they are all pretty much based on biological themes, though embellished and recombined to be extremely scary. Bot flies and their parasitic larvae however are REAL. So let's concentrate on the kinds of zoological reality that gave the producers of Alien its wildest ideas. There's a good reason for this, because our youth often confuse reality and fantasy, and in the age of intelligent design people seem to be losing their curiosity about biology and the natural world.

You will recall that the infective phase of the Alien life cycle is the Facehugger, which leaps onto the head of the human host and shoves an egg down its throat. This is extremely disconcerting for the human host. Cuterebra have far more finesse.
The female uses olfactory cues to home in on the nests of rodents, and simply lays her eggs on the vegetation nearby. When the eggs hatch the tiny bullet-shaped larvae (the first instar) zero in on body heat and attach themselves to the passing rodent.

There is no need for forced entry. The tiny larva crawls undetected into the body through the eye, nose, or mouth -- for that matter any opening they find, natural or otherwise.

The Alien's embryo (the "crawler") settles in the thoracic cavity and matures in a remarkable 24 hrs. Our baby bot (the first instar) on the other hand, takes about a week to migrate from the point of entry to a comfortable space beneath the skin, often in the squirrel's hindquarters. There it prepares its lodging for the next several months. The first order of business is to rasp a small breathing hole to the outside word. It also uses this porthole as a latrine, periodically expelling its liquid brownish excreta on the surface, which the squirrel periodically grooms away.

For the next month and a half the bot is the squirrel's constant companion. The squirrel's body reacts to it by encapsulating it in a fibrous sac, not unlike a mummy bag which seals it off from the rest of the body. The host's white blood cells and antibodies also increase. but this has little effect on the bot. It is basically a couch potato. Its daily routine is to lounge in its mummy bag, feeding continually on tissue fluids and cellular debris.

When it reaches the stage known as the third instar, it's almost as big as the end of your thumb. But unlike the Alien, it doesn't explode through the body wall, killing its host and scaring the hell out of everyone. On the contrary, it goes gently into that good night of pupation by squeezing through the breathing pore and dropping to the ground. There it burrows and undergoes its final transformation. It may emerge as an adult in another month or pass into a diapause and emerge next year.

It is hard to say how squirrels and other bot-infested rodents feel about all of this. They seem to carry on normally and ignore the bot, but in the laboratory at least, rodents become inactive about the time the bots emerge, and we may infer from this that harboring a bot has its discomforts.

What else? Well, if you are a nestling squirrel and unfortunate enough to be selected by several bots, you may not live long. If you are an adult female and the bots settle in your back side (as they often do) you may develop a pseudo-scrotum, and fool all the other squirrels. Male's with a bot-infested scrotum on the other hand may sport an appendage that resembles a duffel bag, but this renders them reproductively useless for the time being.

The affinity of bots for the scrotum accounted for the name Cuterebra emasculator, but Drs Bob Timm and Robert E. Lee Jr showed that scrotal bots don't affect subsequent reproduction. Unlike a lot of other parasites, bot flies don't practice "parasitic castration" upon their hosts.

If that wasn't so, a lot of southern squirrel hunters might be wearing camou codpieces made of fly screen.


References

Baudoin, M. 1975. Host castration as a parasitic strategy. Evolution 29:335-52.

Bennett, G.F. 1973. Some effects of Cuterebra emasculator Fitch (Cuterebridae, Diptera) on the blood and activity of its host, the Eastern chipmunk. Journal of Wildlife Diseases 9:85-93.

Jacobson, H.A., D.C. Guynn, and A. Hackett. 1979. Impact of the bot fly on squirrel hunting in Mississippi. Wildlife Society Bulletin 7(1):46-48.

Scott, H.D. 1964. Human myiasis in North America (1952-1962 inclusive). The Florida Entomologist 47(4):255-261.

Slansky, F. 2006. Cuterebra bot flies (Diptera: Oestridae) and the indigenous hosts and potential hosts in Florida. Florida Entomologist 89(2):152-160.

Timm, R.M. and R.E. Lee Jr. 1982. Is host castration an evolutionary strategy of bot flies? Evolution 36(2):416-417.

COMMENT: Fond memories of caecum research

Well, it seems my old friends are uncomfortable about posting comments, but have no qualms having me post them in the blog. Here is Al Gardner's e-mail to me in response to yesterday's jackrabbit posting. His fond memories of caecum research and Costa Rican revolutionaries give a flavor of the conversations we used to have when I stopped by his office on early mornings. If you're not a biologist, it may sound a little goofy, but I include it because...well frankly, we need to be understood.

"Chris

As always, enjoyed your latest contribution. I am not sure I ever told you of this experience. While living in Costa Rica in the mid-1960s, I was helping a student on a semester internship from a US college. He was interested in internal parasites of bats. At the time, I was unaware that tropical frugivorous bats harbored essentially no GI-tract parasites. (The secondary compounds in the fruit they eat keep them clean). We were not finding any intestinal parasites in the bats we were catching in my yard, so I decided to sacrifice a spiny pocket mouse (Liomys salvini) I happened to have at home, and "posted" it as a demonstration. (I lived in Santa Ana, and with a centrifuge and compound microscope I was fully equipped to carry out lab work in the house.)

We found plenty of parasites, but the real surprise was when I placed the contents of the caecum between two slides and examined the material under the microscope. The slide held a writhing, seething mass of bacteria and what appeared to be microscopic nematodes (in retrospect, they could have been spirochaetes).

According to Dan Janzen, Liomys salvini is a specialist on Guanacaste seeds, which are poisonous. The animal may be a hind gut fermenter and uses the flora and fauna of the caecum to detoxify the otherwise poisonous compounds. Coprophagy of the caecal contents, i.e., ingesting this flora and fauna, would also enhance the overall nutritional content of the diet. Perhaps this is why some animals are hard to keep in zoos, particularly if treated for "worms and other parasites."

My long time helper in Mexico was a former revolutionary. We used to eat guanacaste seeds, but only after the seed pods had been thoroughly cooked in the coals of a fire. On long cold nights tending the mist nets, we would often have a small fire, and this man told stories of the Cristiada Revolution, including the times when they hid from the federal troops and lived on guanacaste seeds roasted in small, smokeless fires.

Best regards,

Al

Alfred L. Gardner
USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center
National Museum of Natural History
PO BOX 37012
ROOM 378 MRC 111
WASHINGTON DC 20013-7012"