Saturday, April 25, 2015

Answer to Case 347

Answer:  Dermatobia hominis

Most of you recognized this as the 'human' bot fly, Dermatobia hominis, recognizable by its somewhat pear-shaped body, lack of spines on the anterior 3rd body segment, and posterior spiracle with 3 slightly-curved slits and a weak peritreme:


I believe that the bulging area on the body is a defect which occurred during removal, while the bubbles are likely due to the poor state of preservation of this specimen. Fortunately, the characteristic features are still apparent.

For those of you interested in learning how to identify the various myiasis-causing fly larvae in humans, the CDC has an old, but still relevant, manual on arthropod identification that you can access HERE.

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