Almost, as if on cue, these things appear again. Just in time for the Great Feast of the Gods.....:
'Mythical' corpse-eating flies are back -- and they're real
July 5, 2013 at 11:24 AM ET
Daniel Martin-Vega / Systematic Entomology
A species of bone-skipper, Thyreophora cynophila, which was first
discovered in Mannheim, Germany, in 1798. They had been thought to be
extinct for about 160 years before being found again in Spain in 2010.
Top: female fly. Bottom: male.
Behold the bone-skipper,
high in the running for the strangest fly on Earth. For the
bone-skipper, fresh carcasses just won't do. No, these flies prefer
large, dead bodies in advanced stages of decay. And unlike most flies,
they are active in early winter, from November to January, usually
after dark.
They also disappeared from human notice and were
declared extinct for more than a century. That's why they've often been
considered almost mythical or legendary, said Pierfilippo Cerretti, a researcher at the Sapienza University of Rome.
In
the past few years, three species of bone-skipper have been
rediscovered in Europe, setting off a buzz among fly aficionados. But
many bone-skippers were found by amateur scientists and recorded in
photographs or video; actual specimens of the flies are few and far
between. For the first time, Cerretti and colleagues have established a
"type specimen" or "neotype" for one bone-skipper species, to which
all of these bone-skippers will be compared in the future, in order to
be identified.
The flies' "previous taxonomy was almost completely
incorrect —a mess," Cerretti told LiveScience. "If you have no good
specimens, you have no good taxonomy."
Maurizio Mei et al / ZooKeys
The newly typed species of bone-skipper, Centrophlebomyia anthropophaga.
The
newly typed species, Centrophlebomyia anthropophaga, was first
described by a scientist in 1830 "based solely on his memory of
specimens he had observed in large numbers destroying preparations of
human muscles, ligaments and bones in the Paris School of Medicine in
August 1821," according to a study detailing Cerretti's findings published online in June in the journal ZooKeys.
Aptly namedThe
bone-skippers get their name from the prominence of bone in the heavily
decayed carcasses they call home. Also, developing flies have a habit
of jumping or "skipping" up and down, so these carcasses appear "alive
with larvae," Cerretti said. (This makes them similar to the cheese
fly, which is "famous in Italy," Cerretti said, adding that the cheese
fly's maggots are known to jump out of infested cheeses.
To
jump, the bone-skippers connect their mouth hook to their tail and
contract their dorsal muscles, letting go and flinging them upward. This
dorsal muscle contraction is similar to the way click beetles propel
themselves, Cerretti said.
Another species of bone-skipper,
Thyreophora cynophila, was discovered in Mannheim, Germany, in 1798. At
first, they were called dog flies, as they were found in a dead
canine. They had been thought to be extinct
for about 160 years before being found again in Spain in 2010. This
species was noted for its alleged capacity to emit a luminous shine from
its large, bright orange head.
Little knownUsually,
bone-skippers prefer even larger dead animals, including humans.
Researchers speculate that they may have been more abundant in
preindustrial times, when larger mammals were more prevalent throughout
Europe, and carcasses weren't disposed of as quickly as they are
today.
Very little is known about
bone-skippers' life history, other than that the larvae feed on
carcasses and spend the summer developing in the soil below, Cerretti
said, adding that the fly's keen sense of smell helps it find dead animals as it flies over snow.
In
addition to being found in large carcasses, bone-skippers have turned
up in a bag of dead, decaying snails; dead rodents; traps baited with
dead squid; and a dead bird, according to the study.
EmailDouglas Mainor follow him onTwitterorGoogle+. Follow us @livescience, Facebookor Google+. Article originally on LiveScience.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment