Creature Feature: Picture-Wing Flies.

Flies are really taken for granted. Sure, they land on our food, but it's only because we leave it out for them. Without flies, the world would be covered in dog poop. In more than one sense, they're garbage men for the entire planet - it's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it.

But did you know that flies can also be gorgeous? As in, comparable to birds-of-paradise?



That is one of several (111) species of picture-wing fly found only on Hawaii. They are closely related to the common fruit flies around the world, and are so named for the patterns that the males have in their lacy wings. Several of these fly species are endangered or threatened, which are in turn important to equally-endangered plant species on the island. Yes, these flies are nectar-drinkers and pollinators- just like hummingbird, butterflies, and fuzzy-wuzzy bumblebees. They're sounding cuter already.

Compared to the 1000-something species of fruit flies in existence, 111 species is not a lot, nor should it be a surprise. It only takes two fruit flies for there to suddenly be millions on an island. If the Center for Biological Diversity is correct, those 111 picture-wing species came to Hawaii only 5 million years ago from one egg-bearing female- even more stunning than if a male had been present. They reproduce faster than rodents.

Fruit flies also have simply amazing genetic potential. That's why they're so horribly popular in genetic studies: they breed like crazy and have a million mutations to play with.  Lek courtship is unusual in insects, and is far more common in birds, which have more potential for elaborate courting rites...or so we thought.



When the rapid breeding rate and genetic potential of the fruit fly is brought to an island, the flies flourish. What were once ravenous pests suddenly become nectar-drinking, dancing insects with beautiful wings. Even humans do not change that radically in such a short amount of time. These must be Beelzebub's personal entertainers, if I must make a reference to Lord of the Flies. Flies may annoy us on the mainland, but they aren't all bad.

Let's Go Spelunking: Dismalites.

As you all probably know, I'm a huge fan of things that glow in the dark. Bioluminescent animals are of particular interest to me. Go figure that caves have some creatures that glow in the dark. Bioluminescence occurs wherever there's darkness - you just need to know where to look for it.

If fireflies and mushrooms are not your cup of tea and you still want to see something glow in the dark on land, look no further than the caves in Dismals Canyon, Alabama. The caves there are chock full of glowing worms called dismalites (Orfelia fultoni). They are related to the Arachnocampa of New Zealand. They make the inside of a cave look covered in cyan stars. 

Beware, looks are deceiving! That light show looks like a starry sky for many invertebrates flying into the cave, too. The glowing spots are just a trap to lure in tasty moths, larger flies, and other creepy crawlies, including mosquitoes. The glowly spots conceal an intricate web of mucous strings that works almost like a spiderweb, snatching prey in mid-air. Although we may be big enough to avoid getting caught in the web, other insects are not so bright and get stuck in the sticky strands. The larvae then feed on the helpless bugs to their hearts' content. If other bugs are not available, they resort to eating their own pupae.

These enchanting, yet vicious, little glow-worms are members of the family Diptera, which also contains the ever-popular fruit flies and garbage-eating houseflies. The adult form of these glowing larvae is a type of fungus gnat. They stay a long time in their larval form, however - if Arachnocampa are any indication, anywhere from 6 months to a year, which is like eons to a fly. Beelzebub would be so proud to see humans ogling his not-as-repulsive familiars.

As one may have suspected, there are a lot of larvae up there. This is an immense gathering of flies that just so happens to look attractive to us humans. They need very specific conditions to gather in such numbers. Along with keeping cave water clean for human use, let's preserve cave ecosystems to keep the second starry sky alive.

"They Actually Eat That:" Casu Marzu

Cheese is good. It is a good source of protein and can come from anything with an udder. Now, it is possible to have too much of a good thing - the USDA has been encouraging insane cheese consumption, for instance, upping the saturated fat in a number of menu items - but overall, it's butter with benefits. Europe in particular goes crazy for cheese; see your local dairy counter for details. How many of the cheese names are in English? Hell, even cheddar is technically from England.

There is, however, only one cheese so delicious, so weird, so rotten that it is only found in one place on Earth:


Scared yet? You will be.

Casu marzu is a sheep's milk cheese made only in Sardinia. It is very soft and should be enjoyed on Sardinian flatbread with a strong red wine. Like the Camembert referenced in the video, it is also very runny; the resulting liquid is called "lagrima," tears.

It is also loaded with maggots.

They Actually Eat That?! 

Yeah, and y'know what? It's illegal in most places.

Casu marzu's softness comes from being chewed up by the larvae of the cheese fly Piophila casei. Who cares what it's called? All you need to know is that the fly lays 500+ eggs in the cheese before it is ready to be consumed and that the .3-inch (8 millimeter)-long larvae can jump out at unsuspecting diners. True casu marzu afficionados will only eat cheese infested with live, squirming larvae, but for the rest of us, refrigeration and paper bags will kill the little things.

 

Although similar practices using arthropods for flavoring/aging can be found throughout Europe, only casu marzu is illegal in the U.S. and Europe. Not only is it loaded with maggots, but it is rotten to the point of being considered toxic. Even the most adamant left-winger would agree with the government on this one.

Damn, now I realize why Asia needs encouragement when it comes to cheese. It can get pretty sickening.

Creature Feature: Screw-worms.

(Warning: This entry is NOT for the faint of heart PERIOD. If you are squeamish, BACK OFF RIGHT NOW. Some of the pics I saw for this one made ME a little sick and I like to think that I have a strong stomach. Nature is not always pretty.)

So it's a zombie apocalypse. People are dying and un-dying left and right. You've got at least one gun and have barricaded yourself in the nearest Wal-Mart, although given the types of people who shop there, you wonder if maybe you were not better off with the zombies.


Braaains...and low, low prices on cheap craaap...

Then you remember that, wait a sec, there are a million things designed to feed off of dead tissue. Maggots come to mind (as vomit might to your throat). Whether they can feed off of undead tissue or not is another matter entirely. Regardless, there is another type of maggot that feeds on living tissue, so if you happen to be in Mexico-Central America when the apocalypse hits, you're safe either way. (There is another, almost entirely unrelated version of this one in other tropical parts of the world, so you're probably cool there, too.)


I am not zooming up on this pic. No, no, no.

Wait. Wait. I just said that there was a maggot that fed off of living tissue. How the hell is that safe and where's a can of bug spray?!

The New World screw-worm fly (Cochliomyia hominivorax - nice species name!) lays its eggs in a mammal's bleeding wound. Yes, it could lay eggs in yours - like I said in the Toxoplasma entry, humans are just another mammal to nature. Try to kill the babies and the little worms will screw themselves deeper into one's flesh (hence the name - but the scientific name is so cool). (For those of you who do not understand Latin, the word "homo, hominis" means human and "vorax" is a cooler way of saying "eater.")


(I actually could not find a good video with these guys; they seem to have all been removed for obvious reasons.)

A brief reminder of why flies lay their eggs on dead animals: The maggots are born on their food so that they can start eating immediately. That means that whatever the screw-worms are laid on is going to find itself with a much bigger wound than before.

Quickly.

Like most small animals and insects, screw-worm flies breed often and have a lot of offspring in one sitting. The larvae pupate after anywhere from 3-7 days after hatching. After another week or so, the adult flies are ready to mate - and how! Females are promiscuous, mating with as many males as possible while they can. Each clutch contains up to 400 eggs, which can hatch into flesh-eating larvae in 12 hours. Their whole life cycle lasts 31 days max, during which the female can lay at least 2,800 eggs.


To be fair, adult New World screw-worm flies are HUGE and easily distinguishable from other flies. Oh, wait, that's still not fair.

Opening up a wound naturally leads to infection and even more screw-worms. Creatures infected by screw-worms usually die within a week or two due to infection, severe tissue damage, or any other combination of icky factors. (Zombies usually have infected wounds already, so they're prime targets for future punishment from these little nibblers.)

While you may be thinking, "Eww, I hope this doesn't happen while I'm eating a taco," the main concern with these guys is the damage that they do to livestock. Yeah, you're on the list, too, but the primary reasons behind the screw-worm's notoriety are economic. (To give you an idea of how drastic a blow this could be, a screw-worm infestation could easily cost cattle farms in Australia 500 million (Australian?) dollars in losses.) You are awfully close to a cow and people are more worried about the cow, a creature that oh, by the way, is responsible for global warming and removal of precious rain forest. I like cows just as much as the next person, but really? This might be a warning sign.



This is from Brazil, but makes the point pretty well.

Some of you will probably be relieved to hear that the screw-worm has been officially eradicated in the U.S. and several South American countries. Beware; everything in an ecological system has a niche. Who knows? Perhaps screw-worms are nature's answer to the impending zombie apocalypse. (Or maybe she's just trying to say, "Get the fuck out of the tropics, ranchers!")


Nah, screw-worms were totally made to be zombie deterrent. Or Wal-Mart shopper deterrent, take your pick.

Creature Feature: Botflies.

Meet the human botfly, Dermatobia hominis. Like the much prettier quetzal, it is native to Central and South America. If its classification as a dipterid like the omnipresent housefly doesn't freak you out enough, wait until you see how it reproduces.

Botflies are pretty big for flies. When it comes to laying eggs inside of a living creature's flesh, being huge and conspicuous is a bad thing. Instead of evolving to be a little smaller, the botfly has devised an amazing, twisted way to get her offspring under your skin.

She wrestles a female mosquito so that, when the mosquito bites down on something, it also deposits her eggs for her. Were it not a fly and a mosquito we were talking about here, that would probably be hot.

When the larvae hatch, they burrow into the host's flesh. There they stay, like living zits, for about 6-8 weeks (I have heard various time-spans). At their rear ends are breathing tubes, which give the larvae oxygen. Their front ends are laced with black, hooklike spines that keep the little maggots quite firmly in their holes. When their time is up, they drop out harmlessly into the Earth, where they then metamorphose into adult flies. The cycle begins anew.

The botfly larva is...relatively harmless to its host. Bar the initial incision and burrowing, it does little damage. It's just a little freaky. The larva can only survive in an uninfected wound, so nature has done its best to make sure that the damage is as clean as possible. They might even make their own antibiotic. (I have heard of some infections after pawing around Google, but it's the internet, and most people would want to take these guys out even if they ended up curing cancer. Infections seem to result primarily from people attempting to pull the little maggot out, which results in a lose-lose situation.)

There are, however, a few cases in which a botfly has burrowed into someone's eye or brain. In that case, GET THE SUCKER OUT IMMEDIATELY. The botfly does not aim to kill its host; most parasites end up in such places accidentally. They are not regular brain- or eye-eaters. That does not mean they should be in your gargantuan head.

Nobody's made a horror flick based on this? For shame, Hollywood.

I may as well come out with it: I find botfly larvae just as adorable as planaria for no apparent reason. (That places them above human worm babies right there.) Maybe it's the snorkel; it just sounds so darn funny to hear about a maggot needing a breathing tube. Maybe it's their grubby pudginess after being in some animal's skin. Maybe it's because the only really unpleasant thing about them is that they burrow into your flesh for a few weeks, then drop out; even though botflies do hurt, they cause very little harm (unless they get into your brain or eye; then, by all means, remove them). Maybe it's because they can theoretically be stopped by placing a slab of meat or nail polish over them...which has got to be the most insane thing I have EVER heard of when it comes to stopping a parasite.

Aww, he's cute. And sticky-lookin'! Seriously, though, some botfly hosts name their little larvae. This one was named Theodore.

They could also be tasty, but I'm not about to try that. Even I have my limits.

(P.S.- I have laced far too many Invader Zim references into this entry for no apparent reason.)