Deer botfly

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Genus of flies

title: "Deer botfly" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["oestridae", "parasitic-flies", "diptera-of-north-america"] description: "Genus of flies" topic_path: "general/oestridae" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer_botfly" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Genus of flies ::

| image = Cephenemya_stimulator.jpg | image_caption = Deer botfly (Cephenemyia stimulator) | taxon = Cephenemyia | authority = Latreille, 1818 | synonyms = *Cephenemya(Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830)

The name deer botfly (also deer nose botfly) refers to any species in the genus Cephenemyia (sometimes misspelled as Cephenomyia or Cephenemya), within the family Oestridae. They are large, gray-brown flies, often very accurate mimics of bumblebees. They attack chiefly the nostrils and pharyngeal cavity of members of the deer family. The larva of Cephenemyia auribarbis, infesting the stag, is called a stagworm.Stagworm - Definitions from Dictionary.com. From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc. The genus name comes from the Greek grc, meaning 'drone bee', and grc, meaning 'fly'.

Description

The larval stages of Cephenemyia are obligate parasites of cervids. Eggs hatch in the uterus of the female. She then flies close to the head of her host species and while hovering ejects her larvae into its nostrils. Larvae migrate to the base of the animal's tongue, where they mature in clusters to a size of 25 to 36 mm. After being ejected by the host, they pupate in soil (2 to 3 weeks) before emerging as a sexually-mature but non-feeding adult, which must quickly find a mate, since their lifespan is short.

Aristotle (384 BC–322 BC) described deer botfly larvae as follows:

Distribution

Species found in the United States include C. apicata, C. jellisoni, C. phobifer, C. pratti, and C. trompe.

In Scandinavia, the only species present are C. trompe, C. ulrichii, and C. stimulator. Other European species include C. auribarbis and C. pratti.

Flying speed

It was reported for many years that Cephenemyia was the fastest of all flying insects, cited by The New York Times and Guinness Book of World Records as traveling at speeds of over 800 mph. (For comparison, the speed of sound in air is 768 mph.) The source of this extraordinary claim was an article by entomologist Charles Henry Tyler Townsend in the 1927 Journal of the New York Entomological Society, wherein Townsend claimed to have estimated a speed of 400 yards per second while observing Cephenemyia pratti at 12,000 ft in New Mexico.

In 1938 Irving Langmuir, recipient of the 1932 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, examined the claim in detail and refuted the estimate. Among his specific criticisms were:

  • To maintain a velocity of 800 miles per hour, the 0.3 g fly would have had to consume more than 150% of its body weight in food every second;
  • The fly would have produced an audible sonic boom;
  • The supersonic fly would have been invisible to the naked eye; and
  • The impact trauma of such a fly colliding with a human body would resemble that of a gunshot wound.

Using the original report as a basis, Langmuir estimated the deer botfly's true speed at a more plausible 25 mph. Time magazine published an article in 1938 debunking Townsend's calculations.

References

References

  1. Nilssen, Arne C.. (2008). "The moose throat bot fly Cephenemyia ulrichii larvae (Diptera: Oestridae) found developing in roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) for the first time". Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica.
  2. "Deer Nose Bots". Michigan Department of Natural Resources.
  3. Aristotle. "History of Animals".
  4. [https://www.nytimes.com/1937/06/12/archives/plane-designers-see-800mileanhour-fly-cephenemyia-fastest-living.html Plane Designers See 800-Mile-an-Hour Fly; Cephenemyia, Fastest Living Creature, Is Shown at the University of Rochester Museum.]
  5. [https://www.tntech.edu/files/honors/nhr/2002_Summer.pdf National Honors Report, Summer 2002.]{{Dead link. (January 2026)
  6. Townsend, C. 1927. ''On the Cephenemyia flight mechanism and the daylight-day circuit of the Earth by flight.'' J. New York Entomol. Soc. 35: 245-252.
  7. [http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/87/2254/233.pdf Langmuir, J. 1938. The speed of the deer fly.] Science. 87: 233-242. (Access by purchase or subscription.)
  8. [https://web.archive.org/web/20121026104607/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,788223,00.html?iid=chix-sphere Botfly Debunked - Time.] March 21, 1938.

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oestridaeparasitic-fliesdiptera-of-north-america