Large fly(?) in Texas
Location: Dallas, TX
October 23, 2011 10:56 pm
Hello WTB
Please help me identify this LARGE fly(?) that my son found in our back yard.
- We live in North Dallas, TX
- It was found today, October 23
- It was found on a piece of playground equipment less than a foot from the ground
- It does not seem able to fly, but buzzes loudly when it attempts to
Thank you for all of your efforts. your site is my first stop when attempting to ID something new that we’ve found.
Signature: Brandon
Rabbit Bot Fly
Hi Brandon,
This is a Bot Fly in the genus Cuterebra, and we are nearly certain it is the Rabbit Bot Fly, Cuterebra lepusculi, a species we just posted last week. We are going to copy Jeff Boettner on our response so he can verify the identification since he has been providing correct species identifications for our Bot Fly submissions. If you still have this specimen, Jeff may request it for study purposes. Bot Flies in the genus Cuterebra are endoparasites of rodents and they have very interesting life cycles. Your photographs are excellent.
Rabbit Bot Fly
Daniel -
Thank you for the quick response, and thank you for the compliment on the photos. I’ve attached a much better photo here, now that I’ve had time to properly set up and shoot this one.
Jeff -
I just read your comments on WTB. I appreciate all of the great info. I will indeed post this on BugGuide.net. I’m excited about your interest in this find. This is a first for me, and I do a fair amount of amateur insect hunting and photography.
I do still have the live specimen, and would be happy to share it. No eggs yet, but I will send those as well if they come. How should I go about getting it to you in the best possible condition?
Feel free to look through the photos of my other finds on my website. The “nature” section can be found here:
http://www.themcmurrays.net/photos/nature/index.html
Kind regards,
-Brandon
Rabbit Bot Fly
Hi again Brandon,
Thanks for taking the time to take this stunning new photograph that is artful as well as accurately depicting the morphology of the Rabbit Bot Fly.
1
¶ Posted 24 October 2011 § ‡ ° GIANT fly
Location: Dallas, TX
October 17, 2011 9:53 pm
I’ve lived in Dallas, TX for 40 years and have never seen such a thing. Found today on our hydrangea plant. It has a fat head, thorax & abdomen, is mostly black with awesome horizontal red stripes across the top of its huge eyes, has white fuzz between the thorax & abdomen, and it’s wings fold in a crossed fassion, unlike most flies. Its legs are just like a common house fly (only larger) and it rubs them together and walks/behaves like a fly. When it flies it sounds loud like a bee. It’s about an inch long!
Signature: Grasshopper
Rodent Bot Fly
Dear Grasshopper,
This amazing fly is a Rodent Bot Fly in the genus Cuterebra, but alas, we don’t recognize the species. It doesn’t seem to match any of the species posted to Bugguidewhich describes the life cycle as: “Females typically deposit eggs in the burrows and ‘runs’ of rodent or rabbit hosts. A warm body passing by the eggs causes them to hatch almost instantly and the larvae glom onto the host. The larvae are subcutaneous (under the skin) parasites of the host. Their presence is easily detected as a tumor-like bulge, often in the throat or neck or flanks of the host. The larvae breathe by everting the anal spiracles out a hole (so they are oriented head-down inside the host). They feed on the flesh of the host, but only rarely does the host die as a result.”
Rabbit Bot Fly
GIANT Fly – much better picture!
Location: Dallas, TX
October 17, 2011 10:30 pm
Please refer to my previous submission today.
thanks
Signature: Grasshopper
Rabbit Bot Fly
We will add this to the posting we already created for your amazing beautiful Rodent Bot Fly which we now believe to be a Rabbit Bot Fly, Cuterebra buccata, based on photos posted to BugGuide.
Wow, that is awesome! Will definitely comment back! Thanks Daniel.
Greg Hotchkiss, aka Grasshopper (my best friends actually have called me that since college)
1
¶ Posted 18 October 2011 § ‡ ° Grub Guy
Location: NE Pennsylvania
September 11, 2011 11:34 am
This is one of the strangest bugs I have ever seen. It appears to be some kind of grub as it has no feet. It moves slowly using a wave technique. It has two puffy orange objects by either its head or bottom.
We found it under our kitchen table. My mom thought it was a terd! It is almost black but a bit lighter nearer its orange orbs. We would love to know what this is
Signature: Thank You
Bot Fly Pupa
This is either a Pupa or a Pre-Pupal Larva of a Rodent Bot Fly in the genus Cuterebra which you can verify by comparing to this photo on BugGuide. The mystery is how it go under your kitchen table. Perhaps your household feline recently caught a rodent that was being parasitized by this endoparasitic Bot Fly.
Species Identification Courtesy of George Jeff Boettner and Eric Eaton
Hi, Daniel:
Can you copy and paste this to WTB?
Eric
Hi Eric,
George Jeff Boettner commented on your link.
George Jeff wrote: “Hi Eric, I can’t seem to post to the original site. If you can let them know this is a mouse bot, Cuterebra fontinella. It likely emerged out of a mouse walking across the table. So they should look around for signs of mice too! If put in soil and kept dry and outdoors for a year, they would likely get an adult bot next July or August.”
1
¶ Posted 11 September 2011 § ‡ ° huge black fly
Location: northwest
August 6, 2011 10:55 pm
I live in the country. Eagle creek Oregon. Found this in the laundry room. Its huge! All black. Little wings on top of its shoulders. Is it a horse fly? I’ve never seen a fly this huge before. Its crawling on a quarter!
Signature: Tina
Rodent Bot Fly
Hi Tina,
This is a Rodent Bot Fly, and we believe it is Cuterebra tenebrosa which we identified on BugGuide. These Bot Flies are skin parasites on rodents, and the host insect for Cuterebra tenebrosa is the wood rat.
¶ Posted 07 August 2011 § ‡ ° upstate ny, came out of dead rabbit
Location: Greene County, NY
July 24, 2011 4:44 pm
Have no clue.. it is alive and crawls around.. found it while cleaning a dead rabbit can you help
Signature: FoX83
Bot Fly Larva
Hi FoX83,
This is the larva of a Rodent Bot Fly in the genus Cuterebra. The larvae are endoparasites found on certain mammals. The Bot Fly larva forms a warble, generally on the neck of the infested host, and though they look quite nasty, they are alleged to not harm the host.
¶ Posted 25 July 2011 § ‡ ° Black & white bee?
Location: Washington wetland field
July 19, 2011 10:58 am
Help me find out what this is. It was seen in a wetland field here in the state of Washington. It’s the same size as a bumble bee. I didn’t see it fly, it does appear to have wings. It is also fuzzy like a bumble bee. Thanks
Signature: P Lind
Rodent Bot Fly
Dear P Lind,
You have encountered a Rodent Bot Fly in the genus Cuterebra. According to BugGuide: “Females typically deposit eggs in the burrows and “runs” of rodent or rabbit hosts. A warm body passing by the eggs causes them to hatch almost instantly and the larvae glom onto the host. The larvae are subcutaneous (under the skin) parasites of the host. Their presence is easily detected as a tumor-like bulge, often in the throat or neck or flanks of the host. The larvae breathe by everting the anal spiracles out a hole (so they are oriented head-down inside the host). They feed on the flesh of the host, but only rarely does the host die as a result.”
¶ Posted 20 July 2011 § ‡ ° Looks like a bumblebee with a fly bottom?
Location: Petawawa, Ontario
June 8, 2011 10:36 pm
When I found this lovely critter beside my pool, I thought it must be a half-drowned bumblebee as it’s about the same size and shape as a bumblebee. I poked it gently with a stick to see if it was alive,and it squirted something out of it’s rear end in a stream of what I figured was some sort of venom. (It got some distance with the spray, too, about 12 inches in a fine arc onto my lawn!)
I quickly got a bottle (and lid) from the house to carefully capture it and get a better look. It didn’t seem to have a mouth or a stinger, and had a fuzzy head but shiny bottom like a fly. Also, I noticed it didn’t have the same kind of wings as a bee. After I did some online searching and overcame the heebee jeebees, we got some clearer pics, this hefty fella was flushed down the toilet… just to be safe.
After you correctly identified our Luna Moth visitor, I knew exactly where to go for an answer on this one. Am I close with my guess that this is some type of botfly? It doesn’t have the red stripes on it’s eyes that I’ve seen from some other images, but the shape of the body and other features look familiar.
Signature: Anderson Family
Bot Fly
Dear Anderson Family,
We will leave the species identification to the experts, but you are absolutely correct in your guess that this is a Bot Fly in the genus Cuterebra. Of the species on bugGuide, out best guess would be Cuterebra emasculator, and there is a comment posted that includes this information: “This is our only golden haired bot in the Northeast and this species can be found anywhere east of the Mississippi although rarely seen. It is primarily host specific in the Northeast on chipmunks, Tamias striatus.”
¶ Posted 15 June 2011 § ‡ ° Giant Fly
Location: Yakima, WA
November 1, 2010 4:18 pm
Biggest dipteran I’ve ever seen.
Signature: Paul Huffman, President-for-Life, Moclips Surf Club
Bot Fly
Hi Paul,
We strongly believed that you had submitted an image of a Bot Fly in the family Oestridae, but most individuals we have identified in the past are marked with black and white patches similar to the patterns on a Holstein milk cow. We quickly found a matching photo on BugGuide that is identified as the Bot Fly Cuterebra tenebrosa, and Natalie McNear from Marin County California who submitted the photo wrote: “Looking on here it most closely resembles the New World skin bot flies of the subfamily Cuterebrinae, but I don’t see any on here that are all dark with a metallic blue abdomen.“ There is a comment by Jeff Boettner on the posting that indicates: “I am pretty confident this one is likely Cuterebra tenebrosa. There are a few other species that have all black females, but you have shots from all angles, so likely this is correct. The bot uses Neotoma (wood rats) as a host. …“ There is a very robust comment dialog on that posting that is well worth the time to read. The genus information page on BugGuide provides this information on the life cycle of the Bot Flies: “Females typically deposit eggs in the burrows and ‘runs’ of rodent or rabbit hosts. A warm body passing by the eggs causes them to hatch almost instantly and the larvae glom onto the host. The larvae are subcutaneous (under the skin) parasites of the host. Their presence is easily detected as a tumor-like bulge, often in the throat or neck or flanks of the host. The larvae breathe by everting the anal spiracles out a hole (so they are oriented head-down inside the host). They feed on the flesh of the host, but only rarely does the host die as a result.“ Bot Flies are also known as Warble Flies. These Bot Flies really are quite large and they resemble bumble bees in both appearance and sound.
Bot Fly
¶ Posted 02 November 2010 § ‡ ° Tagged: newsletter 
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