The animal that I have chosen is an intriguing and peculiar creature that has a strange way of living, or at least to us people.  My animal for this year is the Dear Botfly, it seems much like a bee in appearance and it is supposed that they could fly up to 400 yards per second.  This interesting creature lives in parts of the United States of America.  The purpose of this essay is to present myself and others what can come, and be learned from these fascinating creatures.

The Deer Botfly is a quick fly that burrows into a deer.  As an adult, they are normally about 14 mm.  The Deer Botfly is a grey-yellow with a black stripe and a black abdomen.  The Deer Botfly generally lives in the type of habitat that a white tailed deer would live in since they are its most common host.  The most defined characteristics of the Deer Botfly are its Bee-like appearance, and the animal it uses as its host, the White Tailed Deer and many others in its family.  This is just some of the information of the Deer Botfly.

Since it is an insect, it can be too numerous to keep up with so people don‘t keep track of how many Deer Botflies there are.  This species of Botfly can be found in the United States, more specifically, parts of Arizona and California.  Since it is not recorded, it is unknown.  Since the population is unknown, the conservation status is also an unknown fact.  Although this information is just a very slim portion, seeing as how anything to do with the population is unknown.

The average Deer Botfly does not eat.  The Deer Botfly’s position in its food web would probably be somewhere near the bottom.  I say this because the Deer Botfly is technically an omnivore, this is because the larvae stay at the base of the tongue and eats what the deer eats but also literally eats through to skin to get to certain places in the body, meaning they eat meat too.  The adult forms of this insect do not eat, they have a short life span, so when they are larvae, thy store up energy.  This fly doesn’t have too many predators, but some would include frogs and birds.  The way this bug prevents being eaten is by small and simple things like burrowing into animal skin to mature and burrowing into the ground during their pupa stage.  This is helpful and educational information on the diet and position on the food web.

This animal can be an important source of food for any bird of fly eating organism.  However, these magnificent creatures are more of a harm than a help to the animals they use as hosts.  What stood out to me about this animal is that they lay their eggs into the nose of a deer of some sort and leave while their larvae manage life on their own in the body of the host.  Another interesting fact about this wondrous creature is that is sometimes nests in the uterus of a female deer when they are swallowed or they just burrow there.  They can also latch themselves to the wall of the small intestine like a tapeworm would for humans.

Author: Kaylee M.
Date Published: 3/13

Sources:  http://bugguide.net/node/view/544040
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer_botfly
Image source:  http://bugguide.net/node/view/508190