Fly With Live Maggots Inside?

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SntaCruz83

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Today I was sitting in the backyard and I was being pestered by a rather large fly. It didn't look like a bottle fly, but perhaps a flesh fly. After landing on my mojito I was out for revenge and went to get my net. I caught the bastard and dumped him in with one of my chinese mantises and let nature run its course (according to my will) while I went to get another drink. It wasn't long before the fly was being eaten up and I was quite pleased with myself. When I returned to the enclosure to empty out any legs/wings that were tossed aside I noticed that one of the legs was moving around. I know that the antennae from a detached insect head can still move, but a fly's leg? Upon closer inspection I could see probably around 50 tiny maggots crawling around and in turn moving the leg slightly. I clean the enclosures just about every day, so I'm almost certain that those weren't in there before the fly was dropped in there. But, I thought flies laid eggs! I did a quick search on the net and saw that some people believe that a case like this could be from a parasite the fly might have had. Others say that there may be flies that lay live maggots. As far as I know, only some bot flies lay live maggots and I don't think we have those in our area (Southern California - Orange County).

I'm looking to see if anyone has any input on this, and if it WAS a parasite, is there a chance that I've now infected my mantis? Or does a parasite maggot not work like a tapeworm does? Thanks.

 
Parasite. Most wild animals including insects have parasites.

 
I think the fly in it´s desperation, lay the maggots, so they should survive..... I saw something similar and I was so amazed.

Acanthops.jpg


Acanthops_4.jpg


maybe Dr Phil ( :rolleyes: ) could tell Us.

saludos

 
Mexxico Ghost said:
I think the fly in it´s desperation, lay the maggots, so they should survive..... I saw something similar and I was so amazed.

maybe Dr Phil ( :rolleyes: ) could tell Us.

saludos
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I don't think any flies have live births. They lay eggs. That is a parasite of the fly. Ironic.

 
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So the parasites evacuated because they sensed the host was dieing? I know other parasites will do that if say their human host is compromised. In any case if they are bolting sounds like they won't have any chance surviving if the mantis eats them so the mantis should be fine.

 
Parasites are almost always specific to a certain Genera of host. In other words there are lots of tape worms, for example, but there is a beef tape worm, a pork one, etc. There are parasitic wasps which are tiny compared to the ones which sting people on occasion, and these are out to place their eggs inside specific hosts. Sometimes the host may be a caterpillar, another time it is a large fly. The larvae that were in the fly would have eaten it from the inside, and your mantis gave it a more worthy and hasty death.

 
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The flesh fly eggs or live larva.

"Flesh-flies, being viviparous, frequently give birth to live young on corpses of human and other animals, at any stage of decomposition from recently dead through to bloated or decaying (though the latter is more common)."

From wikipedia. I knew I had read about it somewhere. I don't know if those were parasites or larva, but some flies DO have live births.

The fly in the photo with the Acanthops is a flesh fly. You can tell by it's red butt. What color was the fly that you caught? Red bottom? If so, they were probably maggots.

 
patrickfraser said:
The flesh fly eggs or live larva.

"Flesh-flies, being viviparous, frequently give birth to live young on corpses of human and other animals, at any stage of decomposition from recently dead through to bloated or decaying (though the latter is more common)."

From wikipedia. I knew I had read about it somewhere. I don't know if those were parasites or larva, but some flies DO have live births.

The fly in the photo with the Acanthops is a flesh fly. You can tell by it's red butt. What color was the fly that you caught? Red bottom? If so, they were probably maggots.
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Good observation, and I think that you are almost certainly right. I suspect that the maggots were pushed out by the contractions of the fly's abdomen as it was dying or by the mechanical force of the mantid's claw.

What a yummy hobby we have!. Anyone tried carving gourds? :D

 
I would concur that they are maggots too. A mouse or rat died in my garage recently and these huge flesh flies started appearing all over the place. Upon smashing them I found plenty of little maggots in the corpses. I've feed these super fat flies to my mantises before. What gets irritating is getting all the little maggots out especially with substrate. Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to use them to for flesh fly cultures. Just need a piece of rotting meat. :)

 
sppc9876 said:
I would concur that they are maggots too. A mouse or rat died in my garage recently and these huge flesh flies started appearing all over the place. Upon smashing them I found plenty of little maggots in the corpses. I've feed these super fat flies to my mantises before. What gets irritating is getting all the little maggots out especially with substrate. Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to use them to for flesh fly cultures. Just need a piece of rotting meat. :)
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Yeah...Those flesh fly maggots are huge. They end up "in the mix" from my "fly factory". Nice and juicy, too. They make great treats.
biggrin.gif


 

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